


A Slight Inclination

by jilliancares



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Draco Malfoy in Denial, Eventual Smut, First Time, Horcrux Hunting, M/M, Pining, Pining Harry, There'll be a lot of that, and some of that, and then it jumps to seventh year, and they're all on the run together for horcruxes, friends in first year, it like goes between their school years and the present, it'll be fun, it's cool i promise, nonlinear storytelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-20
Updated: 2017-09-18
Packaged: 2018-11-16 16:13:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 48,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11256465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jilliancares/pseuds/jilliancares
Summary: When Harry Potter is ten years old he accidentally winds up in Knockturn Alley, where he runs into a man named Lucius Malfoy. Harry is thus thrust into the wizarding world and makes his first ever friend, Draco Malfoy. Years later, Harry is on the hunt for horcruxes with his most trusted friends, Draco, Ron, Blaise, Hermione, and Pansy. Still, being in love with his best friend is bound to make their mission a little bit more difficult, isn't it?





	1. A Slight Introduction

Harry knew that he was going to be in a lot of trouble. He'd surely be getting yelled at by Uncle Vernon very soon—whenever he was found, anyway. He'd been lagging behind the Dursleys as they'd walked through London, and multiple times Uncle Vernon had turned around and snapped at him to stop dallying and that he wouldn’t "be blamed if you get lost, boy!"

But Harry _had_ gotten lost. One moment he'd been walking behind the Dursleys, scuffing his feet against the ground, and the next, he'd looked up and seen a store he'd never seen before. On either side of it were bright, cheery, normal stores, selling clothes and trinkets and pastries. But in between them was a tall, dark building, looking most out of place in the line of shops.

Not thinking about the consequences, or about anything, really, Harry had pushed open the door. Inside were a wide variety of things he didn't quite understand. Dark shapes that fluttered across the high ceiling, looking strangely like bats. Big vats full of odd, bubbling, churning liquid, emitting an eery glow. The walls were full of dirty looking bottles and containers, and when Harry squinted, he could see that one was labeled _unicorn hair_.

Realizing just what a mistake he might've made, Harry turned back towards the door, intending to leave the creepy shop and catch back up with the Dursleys. To his dismay, the door was gone, and he turned back around frantically, his heart pounding.

"Hello?" he called, his voice echoing through the empty shop. Nobody responded and Harry took a step further into the building, cringing as the wooden floors creaked beneath his feet.

Just then, a wardrobe in the back of the shop gave an alarming wobble, and Harry froze, staring at it. He decided right then and there that at ten years old he was much too young to die. The wardrobe shook again, rocking on its feet, and Harry stared at in in horror.

Suddenly, the door flung open, and out stepped Uncle Vernon.

"W-What were you doing in there?" Harry stammered, confusion and fear clouding his mind. Uncle Vernon looked angry.

"I told you not to go wandering off, boy!" Uncle Vernon snapped, taking a threatening step closer. Harry backed further away.

"I didn't mean to. Th-the door disappeared!" Harry said, but Uncle Vernon didn't care to hear his excuses. He was already raising his fist and advancing on Harry.

"...and back here is where we have—" Harry turned in relief as a door on the other side of the shop swung open, revealing a scruffy looking man with a beard leading another man, this one looking immaculate. He had long, blond hair, past his shoulders, and behind him stood a boy about Harry's age, looking extremely bored.

"What are you doing back here?" the man—possibly the shopkeeper—snapped. Harry opened his mouth to answer, when Uncle Vernon roared and charged forward. Harry darted away, hastily dropping to the floor and crawling under a low table, where Uncle Vernon wouldn't be able to follow.

"What's a Muggle doing in here?" the refined looking man demanded. Harry didn't understand what Muggle meant, but he understood the threats and curse words his uncle was shouting at him.

"I-I don't know, Mr. Malfoy," the shopkeeper admitted. "Of course, there's a secret entrance from Muggle London, but only a wizard could get through there—"

Just then, Uncle Vernon vanished, and instead in his place stood a figure in a dark, black cloak, facing the man called Mr. Malfoy. The shopkeeper squeaked. "Why didn't you look for me, Lucius?" the cloaked man hissed. "Did you really think that boy could finish _me_?"

"Get this boggart out of here!" Lucius demanded, and the shopkeeper stepped hastily in front of it, shouted some weird word (and why was he holding a stick?) and the figure vanished. Harry's mind was reeling. Where had Uncle Vernon gone? And what had been that... that _thing_? How had the man made it go away?

Harry crawled out from under the table, shoving his hair out of his eyes. He looked at the boy in the doorway, who no longer looked bored. His eyes were wide with curiosity and excitement, and he was regarding Harry with interest.

"How'd you get in here, boy?" the shopkeeper finally demanded.

"There was a door," Harry said meekly. "But it disappeared. What... what was that thing?"

"What, your parents haven't taught you about boggarts?" Lucius scoffed, regarding Harry with disdain. "What's your surname?"

"Potter," Harry said. Their reactions were immediate. The shopkeeper’s mouth fell open, and Lucius inhaled sharply, his eyes wide, before he quickly stifled his reaction. The boy leaned around his father, his eyes roving over Harry.

"Is that your scar?" the boy demanded, pointing at Harry's face.

“Er—yeah," Harry muttered. He was confused, did these people know him? And why were they acting so weird? They'd said plenty of nonsense things, things that made absolutely no sense to Harry. “Where am I?”

—

The next few hours passed feverishly fast. Harry was soon dragged from the back entrance of the shop and shoved into a corner with the other little boy ("I'm Harry, what's your name?") while the boy—Draco—'s father paced and muttered and wrote letter after letter. One moment Harry was being informed he was a wizard (Harry was willing to accept the fact that perhaps he shouldn’t have snuck out of his cupboard at two in the morning and eaten Dudley’s sweets, because his dreams were turning very strange indeed) and the next he was being dragged from the dark building and down streets packed with people in robes carrying wands and shopping bags full of odder and odder things. Harry ended up clinging to Draco's hand, completely overwhelmed and wondering if he was going mad.

From the moment they stepped into a phone booth (which sank right into the ground!) from the moment they stepped into the middle of a packed atrium was a blur. All Harry knew was that people turned to look at him as they walked past, whispering to whoever they were with and pointing at his forehead. In the atrium there were people seated in seats high above them all around, and Mr Malfoy was talking, talking, talking. He said that Harry couldn't go back to the Dursleys, he was clearly abused and his boggart could prove that—not that Harry understood hide nor tail of what he was saying—and that who better for Harry to live with until he went off to school other than with them? They had more than enough money to provide for him, could begin to teach him about their world, and _look_ , he was already attached to his son, Draco.

Harry blinked up at the audience, his fingers digging into Draco's arm.

"It'll be okay," Draco whispered, his head held high. "Father always gets what he wants."

"I'm still not convinced I'm not dreaming," Harry whispered. Draco pinched him.

After that, Harry was sent to live with the Malfoys, though he didn’t understand why. The Dursleys had been trying to get rid of him all his life, surely no one had any genuine interest in taking him in? Unless they were getting something out of it, perhaps. Still, Harry couldn’t help but like them.

They managed to convince him that this wasn’t all some elaborate kind of dream, and Draco’s mother entertained him with a variety of spells, proving again and again that magic was real and that he was a _wizard_. She could make things float, disappear at will, and make people do whatever she wanted, if she so wished. She even took Harry to see Diagon Alley, the wizarding shopping district in London, where wizards went about their day buying the weirdest, most incredible things. Harry was itching to get his hands on a real, flying broomstick or a magical pet or a wizarding chess set (the pieces moved themselves!). Most exciting was the thing they actually bought for him—his very own wand.

Harry only lived with them for a couple months before he turned eleven, at which point an owl arrived, inviting him to Hogwarts. Draco’s excitement about the school had rubbed off on Harry, and they both ran around the Manor in excitement, waving their letters around. Lucius tended to look down on such childish displays, but Draco seemed to loosen up in Harry’s presence, and Harry was an expert in keeping out of the way of adults.

By the time it was September the first, Harry still only knew about an abysmal amount of the wizarding world, but it was more than he would’ve known otherwise. Draco seemed to enjoy knowing more than him, and took to almost mentoring Harry, considering it his job to tell him just about everything he knew. It was Draco, too, who told Harry that he was famous in the wizarding world. No, his parents hadn’t been killed in a car crash but had instead perished by the wand of a man named Voldemort, a wand that Harry had survived from. It was because of this that virtually everybody in the wizarding world knew him and the scar on his head.

Boarding the train to Hogwarts was an exciting affair, and he and Draco shared giddy grins as they made their way down the compartments and stuffed themselves inside the first empty one they saw.

“I’ll be in Slytherin,” Draco said, unprompted. “My whole family has been.”

“Then I want to be in it too,” Harry insisted, and Draco laughed.

“I don’t think you will be,” he said. “You just don’t seem the type. Too _honest_ I think.”

Just then, the compartment door slid open, and a boy with a shock of red hair stepped in. “Mind if I sit with you?” he asked. “Everywhere else’s full.”

Immediately, Draco’s nose wrinkled and he opened his mouth, likely to say something rude.

“Sure!” Harry said, and the boy grinned, coming to sit across from Harry, beside Draco.

“I’m Ron, by the way,” he said. “Ron Weasley.”

“ _Weasley_ ,” Draco scoffed, and Ron turned to look at him with a glare.

“Who are you then?”

“I’m Draco Malfoy,” Draco said pompously. “And this is my friend Harry Potter.” For a moment, Ron’s eyes grew to the size of Aunt Petunia’s fine china, before he coughed and looked away.

“Nice to meet you Harry,” he said, his eyes flicking towards the scar on Harry’s head.

Draco seemed satisfied enough, something to do with causing Ron to get that look on his face, but he was still clearly dissatisfied with the fact that they were even sharing a compartment with the other boy. Before he could get a chance to pull Harry aside and demand they change seats, however, the compartment door slid open once more.

“Has anyone seen a toad?” the new arrival asked, her hair a gargantuan bushy mess and her front teeth overlarge. “A boy named Neville’s lost one.”

“Er—no,” Harry said uncertainly. Did wizards regularly own toads, he wondered?

“What kind of lesser wizard would purchase a _toad_?” Draco scoffed, which suitably answered Harry’s internal question. The girl seemed to take offense to this, her eyes scanning Draco rudely, but she didn’t combat it.

“Well, anyway,” she sighed. “Tell me if you find one. I’m Hermione Granger, by the way.”

“Ron Weasley,” Ron supplied.

“Harry Potter,” said Harry. Draco didn’t say anything, picking at his cuticles.

“Harry Potter?” Hermione repeated, taking a step further into the compartment. “I’ve read about you! You’re in quite a few history books.”

“Am I?” questioned Harry, and Draco scoffed.

“Of course you are,” he said. “I told you about the whole Dark Lord business, remember?”

“But they put that in _books_?” Harry said, incredulous.

“If you’d excuse us,” Draco finally said, smiling tight-lipped at Ron and Hermione before standing and leading the way out of the compartment. The moment the door shut behind them, he gripped Harry’s elbow and marched them firmly down the train, far away from the two new arrivals.

"You can't be friends with them, Harry," Draco informed him firmly, his voice serious. Harry blinked, confused.

“Why not?"

Draco sighed a much too heavy sigh for an eleven year old. "Well, you wouldn't be able to tell, but that girl was obviously a _mudblood_." Harry didn't know what this word meant, but he could tell from the vitriolic way Draco said it that it was something bad. "And that redhead is a Weasley! The biggest family of blood traitors there is!"

“Mudblood, blood traitor—what does that all mean?" Harry demanded.

Draco huffed, obviously agitated. "It _means_ that they don't respect wizard blood," he answered. "The Malfoys are all wizard blood, you know—pureblood. You're nearly the same, being a Potter; your mother's a small hitch in the line, of course. But Granger is from a Muggle family—she hasn't a drop of magical blood in her, and Weasley over there is completely fine with it."

Harry was still very much confused. "But what's wrong with that?" he questioned. "I mean, she's still magic, same as you and me, right? What does it matter where she came from?"

"It just does!" Draco insisted. "They're not like us, we can't be friends with them! Mudbloods—they don't know anything about the wizarding world; they taint our traditions, ruin our purity."

“ _I_ don’t know anything about the wizarding world,” Harry spat, offended. He was glaring at his friend now, his arms crossed. The things Draco were saying reminded him of the hateful things Harry had heard young, stupid boys at school say about foreign people or black people or poor people—anyone not in the same position as them.

"You're a special case," Draco huffed. "You're _Harry Potter_."

"And you're ignorant," Harry answered. He was proud of himself for this one—it had been his vocab word of the week a shortly before summer started. "What you're saying doesn't make sense. Maybe _you_ can't be friends with Ron and Hermione, but I can."

This began the first fight that he and Draco had ever been in. On their way back to the compartment, Harry stopped a passing witch with a trolley and bought an armful of snacks and candy she was supplying. He re-arrived in their compartment, Draco sullen and silent behind him, with a huge smile on his face. To his surprise, there were more people in it than he'd left it with—a pug-faced girl with pixie-cut black hair and a dark-skinned boy, sitting up straight and looking bored.

"Chocolate frog, anyone? Draco's told me they _actually_ jump!"

—

It was no surprise when Draco was sorted into Slytherin—it was what he'd been expecting, after all. Despite their fight, he'd still stood stiff by Harry's side, obviously angry but unwilling to leave his friend. Blaise Zabini and Pansy Parkinson—the two who'd joined them in their carriage—had stood huddled beside them as well, apparently some childhood acquaintances of Draco's.

"Reckon you'll be in Gryffindor?" Ron had whispered to Harry. "I think it'd be a laugh!"

Hermione, overhearing this, sniffed disapprovingly. "I hardly think it'll be a _laugh_. We've surely got tons of studying to do—I've already read all our books to prepare, of course, and a few extra from Diagon Alley as well." Harry shared an incredulous look with Ron at this and was glad to learn that he wasn't the only one who hadn't prepared like Hermione had.

"Malfoy, Draco," the stern looking witch called McGonagall called, and with one last look at Harry, Draco had left to be sorted into Slytherin.

In his own moments under the hat, Harry had the honor of sharing a healthy debate with it. Really, it wasn't that he didn't _want_ to be in Slytherin, but... it just didn't feel right. It didn't feel like _him_. A small part of him, maybe, but the majority was... "GRYFFINDOR!"

Grinning, Harry slipped off the stool, spared Draco a glance, and hurried off towards the Gryffindor table, where many redheads were all sitting together.

"Alright Harry?" said one of these redheads, clapping him on the back. He was identical to another. "I'm Fred and this is George—our brother over there is Percy."

Hogwarts proved to be just as exciting and magical as he was expecting, and that night Harry ran up the stairs to Gryffindor with Ron, sated and tired and with a full belly, but excited nonetheless. He had only just changed into his pajamas and brushed his teeth when an older Gryffindor poked his head into their dormitory, making all the first years panic and wonder if there really was a First-Year Hazing.

"Potter?" the older student said, and Harry stepped out of the bathroom.

"Yeah?"

"There's some Slytherin at the portrait hole for you."

Harry wasn't keen on keeping Draco waiting, so he scrambled down the many dormitory steps and between all the much older and much taller students in the common room. He heaved open the portrait hole and clambered out, only to find Draco leaning against the nearby wall with his arms crossed. He startled when he saw Harry.

"Are you going to be able to find your dorm?" Harry asked immediately. He'd followed the crowd of Gryffindors upstairs but he wasn't stupid enough to think he could do it again by himself.

"I think I’m supposed to turn right out the Great Hall," Draco said uncertainly, before shaking his head. "It doesn't matter—I just—I came to say..."

Harry prompted him with raised brows, and Draco made an agitated sound.

"You're not making this any easier!" he spat, and then quietly: "I think you're right. About the… mudblood stuff.”

"What was that?"

"I'm not saying it again," Draco said indignantly, and Harry grinned. "And I only said I think, not I _know_ , so you could still be wrong."

"Yeah alright," Harry said, grinning, before pulling Draco into a hug.

"Also I may need to sleepover. I don't know my own password, you see."

It would be their first of many sleepovers in Gryffindor tower, and soon all the other Gryffindors would learn to stop questioning it. The Slytherins would learn the same. Really, it would turn out to be quite hard to separate the two of them, as most would come to accept.


	2. A Slight Separation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello everyone reading this fic! i think i'm going to try to update every tuesday! [i'm uploading a bit early today because tomorrow i'll be on a plane!] i hope you're enjoying it so far!

** PRESENT DAY: **

"The ministry has fallen. Scrimgeour is dead. They are coming."

The moment the words escaped from Kingsley's patronus, it was chaos. People were screaming, running every which way, and loud pops echoed throughout the tent as cloaked, masked men appeared—Death Eaters.

And to think the wedding had been going so pleasantly mere moments before. The whole affair leading up to it had been annoying, of course, with Ron’s mother, Molly, keeping the four of them separated, but she hadn't been able to keep them apart during the actual wedding itself. She no doubt thought that she was hindering their plans, that she was keeping them from ditching their last year of school and going on some secret, dead-man's mission—she was wrong.

"Ron and Hermione!" Harry was saying, his eyes frantic, scanning the room. Draco hadn't been able to take him seriously all night, wearing the costume that he was. He was polyjuiced as some distant relative of Ron's, his unfamiliar blue eyes looking imploringly at Draco. Finally, the world seemed to catch up to him. Right, Death Eaters were here, people were screaming, and they needed to _leave_.

"Let's go," Draco barked. He grabbed Harry's elbow and Apparated then away, the world squeezing in on them from all sides until they existed elsewhere.

"What are you doing!?" Harry gasped, the moment they'd landed. Draco was busy taking the scenery in—he hadn't been aiming for this place _exactly_ but… it would do. "Draco! We have to go back! Ron and Hermione—"

"Will have left already if they're not complete idiots," Draco snapped. "We can't go back there!"

"All our things," Harry protested. “Ron—"

"And Hermione, yes, I get it," Draco interrupted. He grabbed Harry's shoulders, making him look Draco in the eyes. Thankfully, the polyjuice was finally starting to wear off, his hair growing longer, messier, his eyes turning green. " _We can't go back_ ," Draco said sternly. Harry was squinting at him, and Draco huffed, digging into Harry's own shirt pocket to retrieve his glasses and shove them on his nose.

"We can't do this without them," said Harry frantically, no longer squinting.

"Just the other day you were telling us that you should go on your own," Draco scoffed. "Stop panicking. We're going to find them."

Draco had been expecting an emergency like this to go down for a while now. It might've just been paranoia, but no one could say he hadn't prepared for the worst. He'd been studying all summer, learning useful spells that might come in handy, and even now he had several portable meals with him. They weren't likely to be good in any way, they all came in silver, garish-looking packets, but they'd be better than nothing. For a moment, he longed for one of his old house-elves, for the meals they'd cooked and provided every day...

It was just a moment of weakness. Draco hadn't actually eaten a meal at the manor in two years. He hadn't even _been_ there since fifth year. And besides, the food from Hogwarts was better. And Molly’s cooking could put almost anyone's to shame.

"Draco?" Harry was looking at him anxiously. Draco snapped out of it.

"What?"

"How are we gonna find them?" 

Draco opened his mouth to answer, to come up with some idea or other, or at least with something that would make Harry stop looking so panicked, but he was interrupted. Two _pops_ sounded from directly behind Harry, who spun eagerly.

"I knew it!" Pansy Parkinson shrieked, stomping forward with her eyes blazing, her wand held stiff at her side.

"Pansy?" said Harry incredulously. Blaise was busy examining his nails a few feet behind Pansy, looking entirely too bored for someone in the middle of a war. "What are you doing here?"

"She put a tracking spell on you," Blaise interjected. "Paranoid, you know—thought you'd leave without us."

"And I was _right_ ," she snarled, coming to an angry stop in front of Harry. "Explain yourself, Potter!"

"We weren't trying to ditch you," Harry said hastily, which Draco knew was a lie. In just the past week Harry had managed to convince Draco, Hermione, and Ron that _at least_ Blaise and Pansy shouldn't come along with them, the danger and risks too great to involve so many people. Draco figured the only reason he'd managed to convince them of it was because the two people he was kicking out hadn’t currently been present to argue for themselves. And it wasn't as if Harry didn't want their help, it was just that he was a stupid martyr, convinced he had to do this all on his own. His speeches were all _I'm the chosen one_ and _I can't afford to let you get hurt_ and it was all very cute and noble but it made Draco want to hit him in the head with a bludger bat.

"Likely story," Pansy sniffed. "Where's Granger? And Weasley?"

"We don't know," Draco answered. “We had to Apparate without them."

"So you were trying to ditch _all_ of us," Pansy claimed, and Draco actually had to pinch the bridge of his nose to keep from hexing her.

"Any chance you put a tracking spell on Ron and Hermione?" Harry asked hopefully.

"Well she wasn't worried about _them_ leaving us," Blaise chimed in, and Harry sighed.

“So?” Pansy prompted. “How are we going to find them?” Draco wanted to punch her head in. He’d been hoping to calm Harry down enough for him to sit down and think hard enough for the both of them, but now she was drawing attention to the exact thing he didn’t have a plan for.

“I don’t know,” Harry muttered. “We can’t go back to Ron’s—even if they managed to get rid of the Death Eaters the place is probably still being watched.”

“We really shouldn’t even be seen,” Draco said suddenly. “If the ministry’s fallen—”

“ _What_?”

“It was taken over,” Draco said, waving his hand to get Blaise to shut up and stop interrupting him. “But that means that probably none of us are safe. Harry definitely can’t be seen, nor Granger, obviously—they’ll probably start hunting muggleborns now.”

“My father said it was going to be illegal to not send your children to Hogwarts this year,” Pansy suddenly piped in, her voice thoughtful. She didn’t seem to care that she’d be breaking the law this year. “It’d be wise if none of us were seen.”

“Except for me,” Draco said bitterly. “No doubt my father’s found some way to get me out of it—he’s still convinced he can bribe me into being a Death Eater if he tries hard enough.”

“So we can’t be seen, we can’t find Ron and Hermione, and we can’t let Draco get persuaded into being a Death Eater—got it,” Harry said.

“We _will_ find them,” Draco scoffed. “They’re not stupid—I bet Hermione whisked them away to somewhere safe.”

“They’re no doubt as worried as you are,” Blaise said. “It’s not like they’re not looking for you even as we speak.” This calmed Harry down considerably.

“We should make ourselves more easily found then, shouldn’t we?” 

—

"Ew," Pansy elegantly announced, the moment they stepped through the door into the dingy and dirty entrance of Grimmauld Place. This was, of course, before a dust-monster in the shape of Mad-Eye Moody attacked them.

"Pansy?" a distinctly female voice called from what was probably the room over.

" _Hermione_?" Harry demanded.

"Harry!" Ron cheered.

"Yes, yes we're all here. Hoorah,” Blaise interjected. "Was this not a predestined meeting place?"

"It was," Hermione was saying, now stepping out of a door that led to the living room. "But I wasn't entirely convinced Harry and Draco were listening when I said so."

"I'm always listening, Granger," Draco said. He stepped passed the rest of his friends, further into the house. The floors were covered with a thick layer of dust, a testament to how long it'd been since anyone had been here. He'd never been here—he and Harry had barely spoken during fifth year, after all—but he was aware that Harry had come here quite a lot. This place had been the base for the Order of the Phoenix.

"We were afraid the Death Eaters might've gotten you," Ron admitted, swinging around the door-jam behind Hermione. The two of them looked relatively unscathed, which was good. Harry would go absolutely ballistic if either of his friends were hurt.

“Death Eaters?” Pansy questioned. She’d already kicked off her shoes next to the troll leg umbrella stand and was now leading the way past Hermione and Ron and into a neighboring kitchen. She began digging through the cabinets. “You two didn’t tell us anything about Death Eaters.” She said this pointing a wooden spoon between Draco and Harry.

“Didn’t give us much of a chance, Pans,” Harry answered. He now looked much more relaxed seeing as they were all together, nobody missing any (visible) body parts. And it was probably too late for him to kick Pansy and Blaise off their mission now, unless he wanted to be skinned alive by Pansy instead of Voldemort.

“It’s not my fault for not trusting you,” Pansy sniffed. “We’re always getting left out of interesting things—aren’t we Blaise?”

“Unlike you, I don’t mind,” Blaise drawled. This was a lie. He had just as much of a taste for adventure as the rest of them, he was just better at hiding it. He broke as many (if not more) rules at school, and somehow got caught less than the rest of them.

Suddenly, Pansy shrieked. They all spun to face her, though usually her shrieking didn’t make them bat an eye. 

“What is it?” Ron demanded.

“There’s a _thing_.”

“Oh thank God, I thought it might’ve been the Dark Lord,” said Draco.

“That’s just Kreacher,” said Harry, peering around Pansy and into the kitchen. “Hello Kreacher.”

“Master Harry in my mistress’ house…” Kreacher muttered. He looked upon Harry balefully. Draco remembered hearing something about this elf in fifth year. If he did, it was probably from Hermione—though Harry hadn’t been talking to him, and Ron gladly following in his footsteps, Hermione had gone out of her way loudly and often to try to get Draco to talk to Harry again.

“I’m not going to talk to him,” Draco had said several times throughout the year. It eventually reached a point where he wasn’t even angry anymore, wasn’t even sure if it were he or Harry who was in the wrong, but was too stubborn to talk to Harry anyway. Fifth year hadn’t been the best for him, and he’d often wondered if he’d ruined friendship with Harry.

Despite the fact that he and Harry had been ignoring each other for all they were worth, Hermione had been telling Draco everything that was going on in their lives whenever she could manage—probably in a misguided attempt to make Draco miss them and come crawling back. _Yes_ , he had missed them, but he hadn’t gone back. Well, he hadn’t _crawled_ anyway. But Hermione had told him all about the Order (“Even though I probably shouldn’t be, seeing as, well—you know.”) and Harry’s little club—as if Pansy weren’t already talking about it at any given moment—and even about Kreacher. She was always going on about elf rights, so Draco hadn’t found it very surprising when she’d brought up the topic of an old, frail house-elf.

He _had_ found it surprising to learn, later from Harry himself, that the elf had purposely tricked Harry, had led him to the ministry. Even more surprising, Draco supposed, was the polite way with which Harry had just greeted the creature.

“Master Harry is here,” Kreacher muttered. “He brought with him blood-traitors and a mudblood!”

“I do not permit you to say that word, Kreacher,” Harry said. Kreacher hissed under his breath. He then looked up at Harry, and his breath caught. He pointed, with a shaking finger, to Harry’s chest. Harry looked down.

Ever since he’d disappeared to retrieve the fake Horcrux, R.A.B’s locket, he’d been keeping it around his neck. Draco supposed it was sort of a constant reminder for him, a reminder that he had to find the real one and destroy it, destroy Voldemort. Harry had taken Dumbledore’s death particularly horribly—he was convinced it was his fault for feeding him whatever potion had been on that island, despite the fact that Dumbledore had been dying anyway. His blackened hand had been a good enough testament to that.

“Master Harry has Master Regulus’ locket,” Kreacher croaked. “What is Master Harry doing with it?”

“You’ve seen this before, Kreacher?” Harry questioned, suddenly fervent. 

“Have seen two of them, I have,” Kreacher answered.

—

It was an inordinately tiring affair getting all the answers they needed out of Kreacher. Apparently the real Horcrux had been in this house for a long while, but had been taken by Mundungus Fletcher. And so they’d had to send Kreacher out to find him, seeing as none of them had any idea how to track a full grown wizard with an arsenal of definitely illegal spells under his belt. Harry even called Dobby, Draco’s old house-elf who he’d grown incredibly fond of when he’d lived with Draco, to help search for the man. (Not wanting to leave Dobby behind, Harry had made Draco give him a sock before leaving his house for the last time.)

The two elves had found Mundungus after only a few hours, during which Pansy had put her truly deplorable cooking skills to use which they’d all tried to forget about with the use of alcohol they’d found hidden in the kitchen. Mundungus was almost killed by a raging Harry (who was soothed by a calming Hermione) and eventually freed with a promise of revenge if he was lying from Draco. Apparently he’d sold the Horcrux to a horrid, pink-wearing, toad-looking woman from the ministry, which had not made Harry any less angry.

During their fifth year Harry had gotten on Umbridge’s bad side, the extent of which Draco hadn’t known because of their lack of communications. She’d taken a liking to Draco, which he’d used to his advantage to skive off classes and later, be elected to lead her Inquisitorial Squad. She was a right shit, but Draco wasn’t going to say no to being well-like by a usurping bitch—looking out for his own skin was something he liked to do, thank you very much.

Still, despite the fight he’d been in with Harry, he wasn’t about to lead Umbridge to his club. Later, Draco had told Harry that his secret club really hadn’t been so secret, and that everybody had known about it or at least had some inkling as to what it was, including Umbridge. But that didn’t mean that everybody knew how to get in or even where it _was_ , so Draco was happy to lead the pink-clad monster in circles whilst acing all the tests he never studied for.

But while Draco had been having an easy time of it, Harry had been having his hand sliced into with every detention. Looking back on it now, Draco wished he’d said “fuck it” to his pride and stopped being mad at Harry sooner, that he’d helped Harry not get tortured by Umbridge and not get tricked by Kreacher. It was understandable, the anger that’d shown clearly on Harry’s face once he’d learned that Umbridge had the thing he was after. He’d stomped up the (loud, creaky) stairs while Draco had sent Mundungus on his way, and even from two floors down Draco could hear him angrily brushing his teeth.

Now, the rest of them were ascending the stairs, aware that they needed sleep and stairs meant bedrooms and bedrooms meant beds. Tomorrow they’d figure out how to get the Horcrux back, how to break into the ministry and steal what they needed, but for now all they needed was a good night’s rest.

“Three rooms,” Hermione announced, standing in the middle of the hall. On one side there was Sirius Black’s old room, on the other, Regulus’s. Further down the hall was the master bedroom.

Ron was looking at Hermione hopefully while trying to look like he wasn’t looking at Hermione hopefully. 

“Pansy?” Hermione said, and Pansy stepped forward, hooking her arm through Hermione’s.

“This time you should let me braid your hair…” Pansy was already saying, and Hermione sent a pleading look over her shoulder as she was tugged off to the master bedroom.

Meanwhile, Harry was looking at Draco hopefully while trying to look like he wasn’t looking at him hopefully. Carefully avoiding eye contact, Draco opened the door to Regulus’s room, the plaque on the door inscribed with R.A.B, and jerked his head at Blaise. “C’mon,” he said. Behind him, Harry’s shoulders slumped, and Ron swung a comforting arm around his shoulders before dragging him off to the last remaining room.

“You can’t avoid Harry’s feelings forever,” Blaise said quietly.

“I can and I will,” Draco snapped. He didn’t blame Harry but that didn’t mean he wanted to deal with it. Harry had been in love with him for Merlin knew how long, and everyone was aware of it. The only person who _didn’t_ realize that everyone was aware of it was Harry.

Draco climbed into the bed they were to share, huffing as he turned to face the wall. “Besides, we’re in the middle of a war—there’s no time for romance.”

“Weasley doesn’t seem to think so,” Blaise input.

“Weasley’s an idiot,” Draco answered with a sniff. There was a beat of silence. “And, of course, the fact that I’m straight,” Draco added.

“Of course, of course,” Blaise answered. Draco glared at the wall.

“I’m serious.”

“Of course you are.”

“I’m going to Avada Kedavra you in your sleep,” Draco muttered.

“But then who would you complain to?”

Draco ignored his (horrible) friend and closed his eyes. With any luck, they’d be able to find and destroy the rest of the Horcruxes within the next few months, during which Harry would be so distracted by his huge responsibility that he’d fall out of love with him.


	3. A Slight Bit of Parseltongue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprise! this fic is nonlinear! every other chapter will be them back in hogwarts :]

** SECOND YEAR: **

Harry plopped down at the table for breakfast, resolutely ignoring the not-so-subtle way everyone around him scooted away. Even _Gryffindors_! It wasn’t his fault that everyone else assumed that just because he could talk to snakes he was the heir of Slytherin. And it was just coincidence that he kept running into petrified people, really—

“Are you internal monologuing again?” Draco said, setting his tray down delicately before Harry. He slid into his seat, looking entirely too put together for so early in the morning. He was sitting up straight, as was usual, and glancing curiously around the great hall.

“Am I what-ing again?” Harry asked around a mouthful of toast. Draco wrinkled his nose.

“You ought to chew your food Harry,” he said. “And thinking. Stop thinking so much.”

“It’s impossible to not think,” Harry pointed out, and Draco shrugged.

“Then stop worrying. People can’t think you’re the heir of Slytherin forever, and soon enough they’ll all realize they were wrong and come running back for your forgiveness.”

“This is all your fault anyway,” Harry muttered, and Draco pinned him with a harsh glare.

“Snape _told_ me to do that spell—what, should I have just ignored him?”

Harry sighed and rested his head on the table, wondering how he’d managed to get into this mess. And for once, he didn’t mean the mess that was the whole heir of Slytherin/Slytherin’s monster tripe—he meant the mess that was his feelings. It’d been happening a lot lately; he’d be in the middle of a conversation with Draco when his chest would go all tight, his stomach fluttery. It didn’t make any sense.

When Harry wasn’t with Draco, he wished that he was, but then when he got his wish he almost felt too overwhelmed to enjoy it. His chest felt tight and heavy and sometimes his tongue twisted in his mouth and he couldn’t get out his words properly. He’d thought about mentioning something to Ron or Hermione, but he could already imagine their responses.

_Good_ , Ron would say. _Maybe it’s a sign that you should stop hanging out with him._ This would inevitably lead to yet another fight, where Harry would beg Ron to just give Draco a chance. It was pointless, though. Even if Ron did decide to give Draco a chance, Harry was sure Draco would act like a prick to him and ruin it. He only seemed to like Harry, having little patience for his other friends, though Harry was always telling him to be nice.

_That’s strange…_ Hermione would probably say. _Maybe you should go to Madam Pomfrey._ Or something like that, anyway. There was always the possibility that she’d already read about his symptoms in a book somewhere and would manage to whip up a potion for him herself. 

Still, Harry didn’t know quite why, but he didn’t really want to tell anybody about his weird feelings. Plus, as long as they didn’t get any worse, what could be the problem?

“Chin up, Potter,” an annoying, shrill voice said, and Harry groaned.

“I don’t think he’ll appreciate your company this early in the morning, Pansy,” Draco said. _Or ever,_ Harry silently added. Pansy was one of Draco’s _other_ friends. When he wasn’t with Harry, he was with her and Blaise Zabini, a tall boy who spent less time talking than glaring. Draco said he was just pretending to be bored all the time, but Harry didn’t see the point of it. He’d prefer it if Zabini kept his sullen face of out Harry’s sight.

“Nonsense,” Pansy said, and the sound of her tray clunking on the table had Harry sitting up and glaring at her reproachfully. “Potter and I are the best of friends—aren’t we Potter?”

“Totally,” Harry said, monotone. “You know this is the Gryffindor table, right?”

“Is it?” Blaise piped up. He’d sat down beside Harry, surprisingly, and across from Pansy. “I was wondering why so many people were wearing Gryffindor scarves.”

“So,” Pansy prompted, shoveling several breakfast things onto her tray. “What’s the gossip?”

“Gossip?” Harry said incredulously.

“You know.” Pansy waved her fork encompassingly. “News. _Gossip_.”’

“I know what gossip is,” Harry muttered.

“He doesn’t want to talk about gossip, seeing as he _is_ the gossip,” Draco said. “Not that you didn’t already know that.” Pansy shrugged, unashamed by this fact.

“Theodore Nott has a pet snake,” she said. “We were thinking he should come talk to it.”

“And make everyone even more convinced I’m the heir of Slytherin?” Harry scoffed.

“Everyone’s already seen you talk to a snake once,” Blaise said with a shrug.

Harry would’ve refused once more, if Draco weren’t looking so intrigued by it. Ever since they’d been forced to duel by Snape and Lockhart, Draco had been trying to ask him questions about parseltongue without seeming like he was asking him questions about parseltongue. He was endlessly curious, especially because this was one thing that Harry actually had more information on, but he didn’t want anybody else to know that. Draco loved being able to know the answer to questions in class or even just know more than Harry on any one topic, and he didn’t like it being the opposite way.

“Fine,” Harry spat, and Pansy cheered, and Blaise grabbed his arm and dragged him away from his breakfast. “Right now?” Harry spluttered, looking back at his half-eaten toast, aghast.

“We’ll find you some food later,” Draco promised, looking just as excited as the other two Slytherins. Harry glared at him.

They made their way quickly down to the dungeons. Harry had only been in their common room a couple times, and only ever for quick stops. He’d come down with Draco when he forgot his book or needed to stop and grab a scarf. He was fine with this though, he’d never wanted to stay longer, seeing as the place gave him the creeps. It was freezing down there, and all the light was green and flickering, due to the windows leading directly into the lake. He was half afraid the windows were going to cave in and drown them all whenever he visited.

Blaise told the stone wall the Slytherin password and it slid open, admitting them. He’d stopped dragging Harry a while back, after it’d become obvious that he wasn’t going to run back to his breakfast.

There were a few students in the Slytherin common room at this time, a couple third-years playing a game in the back corner and a fifth year that glared at them over her book. All four of them ignored the glaring girl and continued on their way to the dormitories, a place Harry had actually never been. The wooden door swung open as they approached, and Harry let his eyes sweep around the dark room.

There were five beds, one currently occupied by Theodore Nott. Harry glanced curiously around, trying to deduce which one was Draco’s. This question was answered for him easily enough when Draco plopped comfortably on the bed beside the other boy, and Harry followed him. Blaise and Pansy both clambered onto Theodore’s bed.

“Show him, Theo,” Pansy urged, and Theo leaned over and pulled open his bedside drawer. It appeared to be charmed into being the right kind of habitat for a snake. He reached in and extracted the snake, which immediately began winding up his arm.

“Talk to it,” Draco said, elbowing him. Harry huffed. He looked at the snake.

_“Hello,”_ he said, except everyone else gasped in excitement. The snake perked up, lifting its head and turning to look at him.

_“You speak the language of serpents?”_ it hissed, it’s head weaving left and right in the air.

_“I do.”_

“What’s it saying?” Theo asked breathlessly.

_“Then you know of the other,”_ the snake said, its little tongue flicking out.

_“What other?”_

_“The king. The one in the walls, the one who screams of blood and murder.”_

_“You hear it too!?”_ Harry exclaimed.

“What are you saying?” Pansy demanded, but Harry ignored her.

_“How could I not?”_ the snake said. _“The king is loud—and hungry.”_

Harry was speechless. _“Do you mean… that thing in the walls is a snake?”_

The snake simply nodded, before twining further up Theo’s arm, apparently done with conversation.

“What just happened?” Theo asked. Harry looked at Draco with wide eyes.

“I need to talk to you,” he said urgently, and Draco frowned, but he stood up.

“Sorry guys,” he said, before grabbing Harry and dragging him out of the dormitory, his friends’ complaints following behind them loudly.

“What was that all about?” he asked, stopping right before the common room.

“Hold on,” Harry said. He led them all the way out of Slytherin house, and ignored Draco’s pestering as he led him to Gryffindor.

“I have to tell Ron and Hermione too,” he said.

“At the same time? Why can’t you just tell me now?”

Thankfully, they soon arrived at the portrait of the Fat Lady and were slipping inside, eyes scanning the room for Ron and Hermione. They might’ve gone down to breakfast already, but hopefully…

Harry let out a breath of relief when he saw the two of them seated in the corner of the common room.

—

“I’m not sure this is a good idea,” Ron muttered, staring at the sink before him warily.

“It’s not like we’re going down there, Weasley,” Draco muttered. “Besides, don’t you miss your girlfriend?”

_“Stop calling her that!”_

In the few weeks since Harry had figured out that the attacker was a snake, Hermione had done enough research to safely figure out it was a basilisk. She said it explained why they kept finding lines of spiders leading out of the castle, and why Hagrid’s roosters had been killed, their cry fatal to a basilisk. Now all they had left to do was try to find the culprit and turn them in to Dumbledore, but before they’d had the chance, Hermione herself had been petrified.

Even Draco had been shaken by the news, at first, though he’d tried not to show it. Still, none of them had ever expected one of them to get petrified. Now finding the heir of Slytherin was personal, and Harry planned to get a few hexes in on the person before they turned them in to Dumbledore.

“We just have to hide in the stalls and wait for someone to come get it,” Harry said reasonably. They had no idea when the heir of Slytherin would next come to get out the basilisk, however, so they had no idea how long they would have to sit and wait. 

“Myrtle was in here when she died!” Ron yelled. “We could be too!”

“So we close our eyes after we see the heir,” Draco said, sounding like he was trying to call Ron an idiot without having to say it. Ron appeared to be trying to murder Draco in a similar way.

“It’d be wonderful if you died in here,” Moaning Myrtle suddenly said, floating right through a stall door and coming to sulk beside them. She was picking at a spot on her chin. “It gets so lonely in my toilet, you know.”

Draco was looking at her in disgust. 

“Er—I’m sure we’d love to share your toilet if we die, Myrtle,” Harry said awkwardly, and Myrtle grinned at him. She sidled up next to him, and Harry flinched as her shoulder brushed his, momentarily making it feel like he’d been plunged into icy water.

“We’d have lots of fun together!” she giggled, and kept giggling as she rose up into the air and flew back into her toilet with a splash. For once, Ron and Draco seemed to be agreeing with each other, or their expressions were, anyway.

“If we die, I’m leaving you with Myrtle,” Ron muttered, before huffing and pushing up the sleeves of his robes. “C’mon.”

The three of them piled into the same stall, figuring they’d be less likely to be found if they were together. And then all there was left to do was wait.

Draco ended up scouring their entire stall with cleaning spells, not wanting to loiter in a germ-ridden toilet for so long. Hours passed without any sign of the heir, and they took turns sitting on the toilet. At one point Harry and Ron sat on it together, Draco leaning against the door across from them and picking at his nails. He and Ron had bickered several times already, confined in this small space, and every time they did it threatened to drive Harry insane.

“This is boring,” Ron muttered, a couple hours into it. He’d stopped looking so attentive and was now twirling his wand idly between his fingers.

“Stop that,” Draco hissed. “You’re going to hex someone’s eye out.”

“Am not,” Ron muttered.

“Remember the slugs?”

This alone had Ron glowering, though he did shove his wand back into his robe pocket. It’d been months ago, and Draco had lost his temper and his tongue and called Hermione a mudblood. They’d all been shocked and offended, but Ron had been the quickest to react. He’d whipped out his wand and tried to curse Draco, only for it to backfire on himself. He’d been throwing up slugs all day, while Draco had sulked in the dungeons. Later that evening he’d snuck up to the Gryffindor tower to apologize to Hermione, and they’d been on better terms ever since, but Ron still couldn’t stand the sight of him.

“Maybe we should—” Ron began to say, but was quickly silenced when they heard the door opening. There was a silent series of slapping each other and wrestling to see through the crack in the door, in which Draco was the one to succeed, pressing his eye against the slit. He sucked in a breath.

“Who is it?” Ron demanded, his voice barely audible.

“It’s… your sister.”

Ron didn’t believe this and shoved Draco out of the way, taking a look for himself. Whatever he saw, it wasn’t something he liked. His entire face went pale and he took a step back.

“What is she doing?” he whispered, agonized. 

Neither Harry nor Draco could see, and Draco, irritated, whispered something under his breath that made the stall door turn transparent, though only one-way. They all watched as Ginny walked towards the sinks, her arms oddly stiff by her side and her neck held at an odd, creepy-looking angle.

_“Open up,”_ she said, but by the way Draco and Ron’s breaths shuddered in their mouths, Harry was able to assume she was actually speaking parseltongue.

“Close your eyes!” Draco instructed, and they all did so, shuffling backwards in the stall and gripping onto each other’s robes, straining their ears desperately. The sinks and pipes were groaning loudly as they made way for the basilisk to come through.

Soon, a slow, scraping sound begin to echo from inside the tunnel, the snake’s scales on the steel. It was obvious when it reached the bathroom tile, the sound of its body slithering much differently.

_“Come… with… me…”_ Ginny said. Now that Harry was listening more closely, he could tell that she sounded…weird. Not quite herself. It was as if she were following a script, and badly.

Once the snake had left the bathroom, they opened their eyes and exchanged horrified looks with each other.

“We have to tell Dumbledore,” said Harry immediately.

“No!” Ron moaned. “They’ll take Ginny away…”

“Well they should if she’s trying to _murder people,_ Weasley!” Draco hissed angrily.

“She’s not,” Harry said, determined. “She was talking funny. What if she was being controlled?”

“You mean, like, Imperiused?” Draco said, and Harry looked at him in confusion.

“He’s right,” Ron added, and Harry almost wondered if Ron was the one being controlled. He and Draco never agreed on anything. “Ginny wouldn’t do something like this.”

“What’s Imperiused?” Harry asked impatiently. The main similarity between Ron and Draco was the fact that they’d both grown up in the wizarding world. They knew tons more than Harry, including little seemingly irrelevant things that added up to him feeling stupid and left out whenever one of them branched off to the subject of it.

“It’s one of the three Unforgivable Curses,” Draco said hastily, waving his hand in a disregarding manner. “It means to control someone against their will.” Harry frowned.

“So you do think she’s being controlled?” Harry said, and Draco shrugged.

“Maybe. Sometimes people just go bad, there’s no rhyme or reason for it.”

“Ginny did _not_ go bad,” Ron insisted. “She’s Imperiused—I’m sure of it.”

They had to be careful walking back through the halls, knowing the basilisk was out and about somewhere. Harry had no idea how Ginny was managing to lead it around without being caught. They kept their heads down and their ears wide open as they tried to decide on what they should do.

Harry was adamant about going to see Dumbledore, but Ron was scared for Ginny’s safety and Draco had always insisted that he didn’t trust Dumbledore for some reason.

“It’s just something about him,” he would say. “Maybe the beard.”

“We can’t just not tell anyone!” Harry hissed, before they turned the next corner and came to a complete stop, their mouths dropping open. On the wall, written in what looked like blood, was _‘Her skeleton will lie in the chamber forever’._

Ron whimpered. “It’s Ginny,” he said. “It has to be Ginny!”

“Ron…”

“It’s her! Who else could it be talking about? If she’s really been Imperiused…”

“We have to tell Dumbledore!”

But there were footsteps, and they all stood there, stock still, as McGonagall came marching down the hall.

“You three?” she demanded. “What are you doing here?” Just earlier that day they’d told her they were going to visit Hermione in the infirmary when she’d caught them wandering in the halls, trying to visit Myrtle’s bathroom. They’d been wanting to go to stand guard for the heir of Slytherin, but lying about wanting to see their friend had seemed like the better option—and it’d worked. But, by now, they should definitely be back in their dorms.

Finally, though, McGonagall caught sight of the writing on the wall and clutched her chest. “Oh dear,” she whispered.

“It’s Ginny, my sister Ginny!” Ron said immediately. “I know it! They took her!”

“Now calm down, Mr. Wealsey. We’ll get to the bottom of this.”

Even throughout all the commotion (Ron was now shouting at the professor, demanding that his sister be saved), Harry and Draco were already looking at each other. They knew how to get into the Chamber of Secrets, now. They knew what the heir’s monster was, and they knew to avoid its eyes. McGonagall wanted them to wait, to calm down, but by that time Ginny could be _eaten_. 

So really, didn’t it make more sense for them to go down there themselves?


	4. A Slight Disagreement

** PRESENT DAY: **

Harry glanced nervously at Draco. For some reason he was always anxious when it was Draco’s turn to wear the Horcrux. It was obviously bad when he had to wear it too, and always felt like a weight lifted off his shoulders when he got to get rid of it, but he hated getting rid of it only to give it to Draco. It hardly felt like any relief at all.

So far, having the Horcrux in their midsts seemed to have done more harm than good. When Hermione wore it, she became snappy, short, and annoyed with anyone who didn’t seem to be on the same page as her. Ron was moody, prone to huffing in annoyance and driving everyone up the walls. Pansy was bossy (more so than usual) and couldn’t seem to help picking fights for things that didn’t matter. Blaise was less quiet than usual when he wore it, but the things he said tended towards being mean. When it was Draco’s turn, he acted more like he had in their first years of Hogwarts. He’d be vitriolic and acted like he was above them. Sometimes Harry feared the Horcrux was whispering in his ear, telling him the same sort of things his father would.

Obviously, Harry should be glad that they’d managed to get the Horcrux. It’d taken a lot of careful planning and sneaking into the ministry to obtain it, and still they’d ended up losing Grimmauld place. They couldn’t go back, not now that they’d accidentally Apparated to the doorstep with a Death Eater attached to them, and now they were spending their days living together in a tent in various places, surrounded by all sorts of charms to keep them protected. But without a way to destroy the Horcrux, they were just left stressed and angry at one another, unable to find any proper answers.

“Think,” Harry told himself. “Think. Think.” So far, it hadn’t helped him in the least, but for some reason he kept saying it anyway. They’d found Slytherin’s locket, hanging around Umbridge’s neck. Dumbledore had destroyed Marvolo’s ring—part of Voldemort’s heritage—and Draco had stabbed Riddle’s diary with a basilisk fang back in second year. That was three Horcruxes found, two destroyed. And so far all the Horcruxes had connections to Hogwarts. Slytherin’s locket, the ring from Marvolo, a descendent of Slytherin, and the diary, used to open the Chamber in Hogwarts.

“What about things from Hogwarts?” Harry suggested.

“The place Voldemort wants to destroy?” Draco said dryly. He was sprawled across the couch in the main entrance of the tent. Harry was sat on the floor, leaning against the couch Draco was on. Hermione and Ron were both in the room, doing their own things (Hermione’s nose was in that same book it was always in lately, the one given to her by Dumbledore, and Ron seemed to be trying to play chess against himself). Harry could hear Pansy doing something in the kitchen, Blaise’s quiet voice coming from the same place.

“He doesn’t want to destroy it,” Harry argued, turning his head to look up at Draco. He wasn’t in the best of moods right now, thanks to the Horcrux glinting around his neck, but Harry still loved him. Harry would always love him. He didn’t know when it had started, or why, he just knew that he’d known he’d loved Draco before he’d even realized that that’d meant he was gay. 

Harry wished he could just yank the Horcrux off Draco and throw it away.

“He wants to _capture_ it,” Harry continued. “He loved Hogwarts, it was his home.”

“And you know all about Vol—”

“NO!” Ron shouted, pointing his finger at Draco, who rolled his eyes irritably. Lately Ron wasn’t letting anyone say Voldemort’s name. He seemed more anxious-ridden than usual lately, and so they were appeasing him.

“And you know all about _You-Know-Who_ because of Dumbledore,” Draco said snidely. Harry didn’t rise to his tone of voice, knowing it was the Horcrux talking.

“Yes,” Harry said quietly. “And so do you. I’ve told you everything I’ve seen.”

“So what are you thinking Harry?” Hermione said, looking up at him. He hadn’t even realized she was listening, though apparently she was. She was the kind of strange person who could multitask in seemingly impossible ways, such as reading a book and following along in a conversation at the same time.

“I’m thinking, what if Slytherin’s locket wasn’t the only thing he made into a Horcrux? What if he took something from Gryffindor, or something?”

“It’s a good point,” Hermione accepted, but she was worrying her teeth between her lips. Harry understood this well enough. Every idea one of them had was just as obscure and far out there as the rest of them, and if they chased wildly after any one idea they could just be wasting time—they needed a more reliable way to find the Horcruxes.

“What’s a good point?” Pansy demanded, waltzing into the living room. This was the problem with having such a large group, they were constantly having important conversations when one or more of them weren’t around. They’d have to repeat points they’d made over and over, and often there were arguments about why a group meeting hadn’t just been called in the first place.

“Harry thinks that You-Know-Who might’ve made things from Hogwarts into Horcruxes,” Ron said, shoving his chess board away and leaning back in his chair. 

“What’s the point of finding another if we can’t even destroy this one?” Pansy said, gesturing flippantly at the Horcrux, which was around Draco’s neck. Draco seemed to take personal offense for this, and he glared at his friend. 

“Well, we need to find them either way…” Harry started.

“Yeah, but then we’ll just have two irritable people stomping around this tent,” Pansy pointed out.

“Shut up Pans,” Draco snapped. “The Horcrux doesn’t even do anything to me.”

“Oh please,” Pansy snarled. “The look on your face when you take that shit off speaks for itself.”

Draco jumped to his feet, his hand curled tightly around his wand, and everyone seemed to be backing towards the edges of the tent, not wanting to be caught in the way of any hexes thrown.

“Stop it,” Hermione said firmly. Her voice held a certain amount of authority that actually had Draco and Pansy listening to her, Draco huffing and flinging himself back onto the couch. His knee collided with Harry’s shoulder and didn’t move, remaining rested there, and Harry had to hold his breath. It was warm against him, even through his shirt and Draco’s pants.

God, he was a fool for being in love. Especially in a time like this, war and death raging all around them, but he just couldn’t help it. Instead he’d have to keep it hidden, keep his feelings from becoming obvious and a nuisance.

Blaise was the only one who seemed unbothered by the tension in the room. He had Hermione’s book, _The Beedle and the Bard,_ in his hands and was flicking through it idly.

“We might as well follow this lead,” Ron finally spoke up. “It’s not like any of our others are this good. Besides, we might find a way to destroy the Horcrux before we even find the next one anyway.”

“Granger,” Blaise spoke up, and Hermione looked over at him. Ron huffed in annoyance, his statement having been disregarded.

“What is it?”

“You said Dumbledore gave you this book?”

“In his will, yes.”

“And was he the one who wrote in it?”

“Wrote in it?” Hermione muttered. “There weren’t any side notes…”

“It’s not a side note,” Blaise said. “It’s just a picture.” He turned the book around, pointing to the top of the page. There appeared to be a triangle, inside of which was a circle and a vertical line.

“Oh, well I guess there is that. You don’t suppose it means anything?”

“It does mean something,” Draco said suddenly. “That’s the mark of the Deathly Hallows.”

“The what?” Harry asked. 

“It’s just from a kids’ story,” Draco answered, looking directly at Harry now. “You know the one—with the three brothers who meet Death.”

“No, I don’t know it.”

“What? That’s a classic!” Ron exclaimed.

“For wizards, maybe,” Harry answered.

“Either way, it doesn’t matter,” Draco said promptly. “It’s just a dumb doodle. The story’s fake, of course. There’s no such thing as the Elder Wand or Resurrection Stone or—” he cut off suddenly, looking stumped.

“Or what?” Harry demanded.

“Well, the third object’s an Invisibility Cloak, but everyone knows that exists.” Everyone looked at Harry then, knowing he owned one. 

“So who’s to say the others don’t exist as well?”

“And who’s to say Harry’s isn’t the real Invisibility Cloak?” Blaise suggested.

“I’ll say it,” Draco snapped. “The Deathly Hallows aren’t real and Harry’s is just a manufactured one, I’m sure there are dozens. The story’s _fake_.”

“Not everyone believes that,” Pansy chimed in. “My father used to talk about finding the Deathly Hallows one day, after he ‘finally quit his horrid job at the ministry’.”

“Then your father’s an idiot,” Draco decided, and Pansy pointed her wand at him again.

“Stop,” Hermione said, before it could even start, and Pansy huffed and turned around. “Still, I imagine Draco’s right. It’s just a story.”

“Lots of things are just stories,” said Harry. “But aren’t a lot of them based on truth?”

“Harry,” Hermione said firmly. “There’s no way the Deathly Hallows are real. If we searched for them… it’d just be a dead end. We’d be wasting our time.”

“Well hold on,” Harry said. He was standing now, and he couldn’t remembered when he’d done so, but Draco was standing too, and so was Ron, on the other side of the room. Everyone’s eyes seemed to be squinted, everyone thinking fiercely. “You can’t _possibly_ know that for sure, and if Dumbledore gave you that book he must want us to search for them!”

“What if he didn’t even draw the symbol?”

“Who else could’ve?”

“We need to look for _Horcruxes_ ,” Draco suddenly snapped.

“It’s pointless!” Pansy decided. And it wasn’t pointless, of course it wasn’t, but… Harry found himself agreeing with her. The Horcruxes could be anything, anywhere, but the Hallows? There were only three of them, far less than the amount of Horcruxes they were supposed to find, and it made sense that Dumbledore would want them to search for them, having drawn the Deathly Hallows symbol in his book. Plus, if these Hallows were as great as they were said to be, wouldn’t they stand a chance in helping them find the rest of the Horcruxes?

“It’s not pointless,” said Ron. “It’s what we’re supposed to do!”

“Weasley’s right,” Draco said firmly.

“No,” Harry decided. “Dumbledore’s right, and he left us a hint! We should follow it.”

“He also left you a sword, and look what happened there,” Draco pointed out.

Dumbledore had left the four of them weirdly specific artifacts. Hermione had gotten the book, and Ron Dumbledore’s own put-outer. Strangely enough, Dumbledore had left Draco his wand, which Draco had tucked safely into his bag, never having used it. “I have my own,” he’d said. “I mean, it was nice of him to leave me his, I guess. But why?”

But Dumbledore had given Harry Gryffindor’s sword, and the ministry hadn’t allowed him to have it. They’d only allowed him part of what Dumbledore left him, which was the first snitch he’d ever caught. There was something inside it, Harry was sure, though so far he had no idea how to open it. All he knew was that its touch-signature was linked with his mouth instead of his hand, and when he touched it to his lips, words that didn’t make sense appeared: _I open at the close._

Hermione, very suddenly, let out a gasp. “The sword!” she exclaimed. “What if it could destroy Horcruxes?”

“Then it wouldn’t matter,” Blaise answered. “It’s still at Hogwarts with Snape.” Everyone’s faces shifted to ones of annoyance at this. Snape was a traitor. After Dumbledore’s death, he’d seized Hogwarts and let Death Eaters into the school—now he was the Headmaster and Hogwarts was no longer the safe place it had once been.

“And it still doesn’t matter,” Pansy decided. “What if the Elder Wand could destroy Horcruxes? It’s said to be the most powerful wand ever made.”

“But we still don’t know if it even _exists_ ,” Hermione insisted. “And even if it’s real, we’ll have no idea where to start looking. At least we know where to find the sword!”

The air was full of anger and tension, and Harry was starting to wonder if the Horcrux had managed to seep out of its container, causing all of their tempers to rise. Everyone was glaring.

“Hallows,” Harry decided.

“Hallows,” Pansy agreed.

“Horcrux,” Draco argued, looking at Harry with annoyance. Harry’s heart pained.

“Horcrux,” Ron said firmly, Hermione nodding in agreement.

“Hallows,” Blaise said. “It just makes more sense. It’s said that if you have all three, you become the Master of Death—Harry couldn’t possibly lose to the Dark Lord then.”

“And I might already have one,” Harry input. Hermione looked on the verge of a migraine.

“Harry,” she said, her voice tight, sharp. It was the same sort of tone she used when Harry left his twelve inch essay until the very night before it was due and all she wanted was for him to get it finished. “We _can’t_ look for the Hallows.”

“Well I am,” Harry decided. “And you can look for the Horcruxes.”

“I— _what_?” Hermione exclaimed.

“We’ll meet back here in a week,” Harry said. You three can try to find another Horcrux while we find the Hallows.”

“Harry, mate,” Ron said warily. He was looking at Harry like he was crazy. “We can’t split up.”

“We’ll have to,” Harry said. “We should probably get another tent first, but after that we’ll go our separate ways.” He looked to Blaise and Pansy, both of whom seemed to be in agreement with this plan. Harry looked back.

Hermione seemed to be on the verge of tears, Ron scared, and Draco… Draco looked angry.

“This is the most idiotic plan you’ve ever come up with,” Draco said lowly. 

“Horcrux speaking,” Harry answered.

“No,” Draco snapped. “I’m serious. Splitting up is the worst thing we could do.”

“You’re wrong,” Harry said. He didn’t understand why what seemed like the most obvious choice to him didn’t make sense to everyone. Yes they needed to destroy the Horcruxes, of course they did, but… well, what if they didn’t? What if what Blaise had said was true? If Harry had all three Hallows and he became the Master of Death, would that not mean that he could control who lived? Who died? And even if he couldn’t, why wouldn’t the Elder Wand still be the most logical choice? Surely the most powerful wand in existence could destroy a few abandoned pieces of a mad-man’s soul?

It took a while to gather everything, during which Hermione and Ron tried to convince him not to go and Draco glared at him terrifyingly from across the room. In the end, they had to transfigure a pot into a tent, which Hermione grudgingly did her best to expand, but it still wasn’t quite the luxurious tent they were used to sleep in and would be sure to feel cramped.

By the time they were gone Harry was so fired up he felt like he could fight something, but he, Blaise, and Pansy just concentrated on setting up their tent instead. It was true that they didn’t have any leads, nor did they have a reason to leave at that exact moment instead of waiting a few days and thinking of where to go first, but Harry just needed to get away. He needed to be alone with Blaise and Pansy, needed to be able to brainstorm with them.

Blaise stepped into the tent and groaned—Harry followed him. “Damn,” he said. Perhaps Hermione had done a horrible job on purpose. The tent had holes all along the lining at the top, promising to soak them if it rained, and it was barely expanded at all. Blaise’s head brushed the top of the tent and for once Harry thanked his shorter-than-all-his-friends-stature. The tent was barely wider than it was long, and there was only really enough room for them all to set up their sleeping bags on the floor. Any time they spent in their tent would be spent sitting closely together and having zero privacy. There was no bathroom or kitchen, like there was in their other tent, and Harry was now sure that yes, Hermione had most definitely done this on purpose.

Pansy stepped into the tent before wrinkling her nose. “Shame that Draco’s not here,” she said. “You’d practically be forced to cuddle him.” She said this to Harry, whose heart did an uncomfortable kind of flip in his chest.

“What?” he said, hoping he’d misunderstood her.

“Oh, are you not the cuddling type?” Pansy questioned. “I just assumed…”

“Why would I want to cuddle with Draco?” Harry interrupted, and Pansy rolled her eyes.

“Don’t play dumb, Potter. It’s not flattering.” Harry just stared at her.

“You’re giving him a heart attack,” Blaise chided, and Pansy shifted her beady-eyed gaze to him instead.

“Well I didn’t know that he didn’t know,” Pansy said innocently.

“Know what?” Harry demanded.

“That it’s obvious that you’re in love with Draco!”

Harry spluttered. “ _What_?” he exclaimed. “I am _not_!”

“Save it,” Pansy said impatiently, before turning around and swinging her bag onto the ground, procuring her sleeping bag out of it. “It’s not like anyone cares.”

Harry’s entire face was red, his body sweaty. “D-does everyone know?” he asked. “Does _Draco_?”

Pansy froze, and Harry stared at her expectantly, horrified.

“Of course not,” Blaise scoffed, after a moment. Harry turned to him, not yet daring to feel relief. “The rest of your friends are Gryffindors and a Malfoy. Trust all of them to be oblivious.”

Harry slumped to the ground in relief. He pulled his knees up to his chest and rested his chin on them. “I didn’t think it was so obvious…” he admitted.

Pansy just shrugged. She’d now set up her sleeping bag and was fluffing her pillow. “Chin up, Potter,” she suggested. “We have Deathly Hallows to find.”


	5. A Slight Time Arrangement

**THIRD YEAR:**

“Please, Harry,” Ron begged, sitting on the opposite side of the chess board and looking at Harry with a good amount of pleading in his eyes. Harry puffed up his cheeks, looking at the board through slightly squinted eyes and clearly debating how to gently tell Ron no.

“He doesn’t want to, Weasley,” Draco said for him. Harry didn’t quite send him a grateful look, more of a panicked, ‘ _you’re being rude!’_ one, but Draco didn’t care.

“You don’t know!” Ron argued, turning in his seat to glare at him. Draco just shrugged uncaringly. It didn’t matter to him whether Ron got his daily dose of entertainment or not.

“Maybe later Ron,” Harry finally said, biting his lip guiltily. Ron huffed, leaning back in his armchair. There were no other Gryffindors in the common room currently, mainly because the four of them had decided to stay at Hogwarts over winter break, thinking it’d be a grand party between them (or at least, that’d been Harry’s reasoning when he’d suggested staying instead of going to home to Draco’s for Christmas). That’d been before the fight had happened, however, Hermione stranded on the wrong side of it and currently being steadfastly ignored by both Ron and Harry. Draco wasn’t so mad at her—he wouldn’t quite mind if Harry didn’t have a Firebolt the next time they versed each other in Quidditch, though he couldn’t deny that giving it a go himself wouldn’t have been so bad.

“It’s not much fun when everybody knows they can’t beat you,” Draco relayed idly, watching as Ron sulked and fiddled with a random chess piece in his hand. It was a knight, squeaking for Ron to _‘Put me down!’_ which he ignored. Honestly, if Ron really wanted someone to play with he could go make up with Hermione or something.

“So you admit it?” Ron said, looking up at Draco with raised eyebrows. “That I’m better than you?”

“It’s not like we’ve ever played together,” Draco scoffed. A moment passed. “But you would probably win. I don’t spend my time thinking up chess strategies.”

“Neither do I,” Ron said, which was obviously a lie, because there was no way anyone was just that good _naturally_.

Harry, now in the clear with the conversation having successfully moved away from him, went to sit down. He chose the seat next to Draco, of course, climbing onto the couch and crossing his legs. His knee touched Draco’s thigh, but Draco kept his attention on Ron. Harry liked to be close, liked to be touching, and Draco was just fine with that. He’d never been a person who really allowed touches, other than the occasional kiss on the cheek from his mother, before Harry came along—now it was just something that he expected.

A door on the opposite side of the room from them clanged, and both Harry and Ron stiffened as they heard a pair of feet echoing down the stairs. Hermione emerged in the doorway, a book held tightly to her chest and avoiding looking directly at her friends. Harry and Ron glared her way, and Draco sighed loftily. Honestly, he’d never really would’ve expected it but… Harry fighting with his friends was _boring_. It made him sullen and moody and secretly sad, as it was obvious how much he missed his friend, even through his anger at her.

“Hasn’t there been…” Draco paused, waving his hands between the three of them, “enough of this?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ron said immediately, and Hermione’s lip tightened. She seemed constantly on the verge of tears lately, and not just because of Harry and Ron refusing to pay her a sliver of attention. It was also the fact that her workload was steadily building up, her homework easily doubling, as everyone’s did, over the winter break. But for her, double the work load was like four times anyone else’s, and it was honestly unfathomable how she was accomplishing it all. Even with the Time-Turner!

Of course, neither Ron nor Harry realized she had it yet. Draco had known right away, the second she’d shown them all her schedule. He’d though to himself: _she could only do that with a Time-Turner._ And he’d been right. She _could_ only do that with a Time-Turner. Still, Draco figured that he only knew of their existence thanks to his father’s position at work. He’d grown up hearing idle mentions of all sorts of things at the ministry, including Time-Turners.

Draco tuned back into the moment, realizing that Harry was looking at him with a kind of look of betrayal.

“Oh please,” Draco scoffed. “You’ve made your point—you’re annoyed at Granger.”

“She turned in my Firebolt!” Harry exclaimed, at the same moment that Ron took to screeching, “They’re _stripping_ it!”

“Still,” Draco continued. “What’s done is done. You probably wouldn’t have won with it anyway.”

“Oh come off it,” Ron muttered, genuinely annoyed. It wasn’t _Draco’s_ fault Harry had been forced to play against the Hufflepuffs instead of the Slytherins all those months ago! He’d been _grievously_ injured by a _beast_.

Harry was adamant he hadn’t bowed quite right to the hippogriff while Hermione insisted that he must have blinked. Either way, Buckbeak had decided there was something about Draco he didn’t quite like and had clawed him with his great big talons. Once Draco’s father had found out about the incident he’d been furious, stating that he was going to have the horrid animal killed. This, expectedly, made Harry rather emotional, and he’d begged Draco not to let his father kill the bloody animal.

With both Harry and him demanding that the hippogriff not be hurt, his father backed off quite easily. Harry was beyond thankful and had clung to Draco in relief, as if Draco would ever dare to do something to purposely upset Harry.

Still, the injury had been pretty horrible (Draco had insisted he could feel it for days afterward) and it’d taken precious practice time away from him and his team. They’d been forced to postpone their match, pitting the Gryffindors against Hufflepuff instead. (Although Draco was sure that if it’d been him playing against Harry, instead of catching the snitch like a bumbling idiot when the Dementors came, he would’ve caught Harry. Instead he’d been forced to watch from the stands as his friend had plummeted hundreds of feet to the ground.)

Hermione sniffed, obviously thinking her friends weren’t going to change their minds, and spun around, probably off to the library.

“Just make up with her!” Draco insisted, becoming more annoyed the longer he had to dwell on the topic.

“No!” Ron snarled, Harry shaking his head in agreement.

“Fine,” Draco spat. He was going to put an end to this argument whether they liked it or not. He was tired of Harry silently sulking and seething, tired of being forced to hang out with Ron all the time because Harry had to hang out with Ron because Ron couldn’t hang out with Hermione because they were _fighting_ . Really, Draco was doing this for entirely selfish reasons. “Make up with _me_ then.”

And with that, Draco stalked out of the Gryffindor common room and followed in Hermione’s footsteps, surely headed right towards the library.

“Leave it, Harry,” Draco could hear Ron muttering as the portrait hole closed behind him. He just smirked.

—

All and all, the fight didn’t last much longer. It only took a day and a half for Harry to realize how much he missed Draco (and Hermione, though he wasn’t likely to admit it when his broom was still getting terrorized by McGonagall). Draco was glad of this, because he’d spent more time with Hermione alone than he ever had before, and he was _bored_ . He enjoyed reading—really, he did, and he studied as much as the next kid interested in getting good grades—but it was _all she ever did_. Occasionally her head would peek up over the top of her book and she’d mention some fact she though Draco might be interested in and really, those were the highlights of their company together. Draco had even begun to be afraid that Harry wouldn’t come running before winter break ended and he’d have to beg Pansy or Blaise to somehow get back to Hogwarts lest he die of boredom.

But Harry _did_ come running back—Ron at his side. Draco and Hermione had been in the library, surprise, surprise, and the other two had found them quite easily.

“Of course they’re in here,” Harry had hissed, his voice quiet but still audible in the completely empty library. Immediately, Draco had share a look with Hermione, both of them all wide eyes, before they hastily shoved their noses into random books and tried to look incredibly busy.

“I’m just _saying_ —”

“ _Shh_!”

At first it was awkward, Harry and Ron trying to simultaneously apologize and act like they weren’t apologizing in the first place. But soon enough they all agreed to retreat to the Gryffindor common room, where things were normal and comfortable and Ron convinced Hermione to play chess with him and Harry sat too close to Draco on the couch.

After that, time passed much too quickly and break was ending and classes resuming. Draco chatted with Blaise in potions, their purple concoction simmering nicely, while Harry and Ron frantically threw things into their bubbling one and Hermione saved her potion at the last moment again and again as Pansy added things too early or in quantities much too large. Hogwarts was alive with activity again, and while Draco had liked the calm and quiet atmosphere, he had to admit that he preferred the normal one. He liked the noise and the movement and the routine.

Everything seemed to have gone right back to normal. Harry and Ron goofed around and talked about everything as best friends did while Hermione and Ron bickered about any and everything. Pansy and Blaise tricked Hufflepuff first years and Draco basked in the return to regularity.

And so really, Draco wasn’t expecting it when it happened. Maybe some part of him had known, had realized, but he’d never expected to hear it spoken.

“Draco,” Harry said, his voice shaky. “Can I talk to you about something?”

“You can talk to me about anything,” Draco answered, absently flipping a page in the book he’d pulled from the shelf. The werewolf essay Snape had given them in Lupin’s absence was bullshit and Draco was only doing it to stay on Snape’s good side. Harry definitely had no chance, but Draco was willing to help him if he bothered to ask.

Harry cleared his throat and Draco finally looked away from his book, figuring Harry wanted his full attention for some reason. Harry’s cheeks were pink and Draco could tell he was jostling his leg under the table from the way his body was shaking slightly.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong!” Harry said hastily, before clamping down on his bottom lip, his eyes darting this way and that.

“Then tell me what you’re on about,” Draco insisted.

Harry took a deep breath, and then: “I like you.” Draco raised an eyebrow. “Like… _like_ you, like you.” Now Harry’s face really was flushed, and Draco could feel his going red as well. He was staring at Harry, just staring, his mouth open and his eyes wide.

“Er… Draco?” Harry said hesitantly.

“Harry,” Draco said, his voice coming out a bit harsher than he intended. Harry flinched. “You _can’t_ like me.” The thought that Harry did was… absurd. And weird. Draco knew that if _he_ had the same inclinations Harry did he would certainly hide them! He’d hide them most of all from his father—all he would receive would be speeches about bloodlines and his duties and what was expected of him—so it was a good thing he didn’t like boys like Harry did.

“But…”

“I’m a pureblood,” Draco said quickly, interrupting Harry’s train of thought. “You know, purebloods look down on those kinds of… attractions.” Now Harry looked mortified, and he was kind of huffing, almost looking like he was trying not to cry.

“Oh,” Harry whispered. “I just…” he gulped, and then he was quiet, staring hard as his lap.

Immediately, Draco realized he’d made a mistake. He’d spoken to quickly, too harshly, and, well… not completely truthfully. He certainly didn’t think any less of Harry for being gay, though his father probably would. It wasn’t even the fact that Harry was gay that had freaked him out so much, it was the fact that he liked Draco. No, the fact that he’d _told_ him that he liked him. Who _did_ that? And for what purpose? What the hell was Draco supposed to do about it?

“Er—I’ll be right back,” Draco blurted, and Harry looked up at him, horrified.

“Draco—” he managed, his voice thick, but Draco just held up a finger.

“One minute,” he said. “Don’t worry.” Harry nodded slowly, his mouth turned down in a sharp frown. Draco spun and hurried away, though not fast enough to escape the sound of Harry’s loud sniff, certainly a prelude to tears.

Once out of the library, he started running. He sprinted through the corridors, dodging past first years and darting between sixth years. Even a teacher or two saw him, calling after him angrily, but Draco ignored them and kept on his way, panting by the time he got to Gryffindor tower.

“Scurvy Cur!” he gasped to Sir Cadogan, still currently replacing the Fat Lady.

“Stand and fight!” Cadogan commanded, though he still swung open for Draco, who ignored him and rushed into the Gryffindor common room. It looked normal again, filled with people as it was, but Draco almost missed the quiet atmosphere it’d had when it had been just the four of them. Barely anyone batted an eye when they saw it was Draco in the entrance, not a Gryffindor, and he shoved his way through the crowded common room in search of Hermione.

Thankfully, he spotted her in the back corner, a pile of books surrounding her and an angry looking Ron peering over them.

“You keep your mad cat _out of our dorm_!” Ron shouted, his arms crossed and his lips pinched angrily. Hermione huffed.

“He’s a cat, Ron! He doesn’t know it’s wrong!”

“Scabbers was here first!” Ron insisted. “He doesn’t deserve to be murdered by your stupid cat!”

“As entertaining as this argument is,” Draco tried to say snidely, which was actually quite hard when he was still panting from running through the entire school, “I need to interrupt.”

“Whatever,” Ron muttered. “I was done talking to her anyway.” At that he sent Hermione a dark look and turned away, pulling his rat out of his shirt pocket. Draco rolled his eyes and turned to face Hermione.

“Give me your Time-Turner,” he said. Hermione’s eyes went very, very wide before she made an attempt to look normal.

“My what?” she tried innocently.

“Now’s not the time for games, Granger!” Draco insisted. “I need it!”

Hermione’s eyes darted around the common room, before she stood up and hissed to Draco, “I _can’t_. The ministry’s entrusted me with this—I’m only to use it for my studies.”

“And you will only use it for your studies. _I’ll_ use it to fix my mistake.”

“No.”

“Granger—”

“ _No_.”

“Harry likes me,” Draco said, and Hermione gasped.

“He told you?”

“You _knew_?”

“Well, not for sure, but I assumed…”

“I told him it was wrong,” Draco said. Hermione’s mouth dropped open in offense.

“How could you _say_ _that_?” she demanded.

“I panicked, it was a mistake,” Draco insisted. “Please. Please let me take it back.”

Hermione chewed on her lip, looking anxious and uncertain. But Draco knew her love for Harry and his wellbeing far outweighed her respect for rules. It was why she always went prancing off on dangerous missions and breaking school rules with him even though she preached against it.

“He’s crying in the library right now,” Draco added.

With an angry huff, Hermione yanked the Time-Turner over her head and shoved it into Draco’s palm. “You mustn’t be seen,” she instructed. Draco rolled his eyes and slipped the necklace discreetly around his neck.

“Got it.”

Thankfully the corridor outside the Gryffindor common room was completely empty. Draco looked down at the hourglass around his neck, held it in his hand, and gave it a spin. The result was immediate.

It was like there was a hook behind his navel, dragging him roughly backwards while the world spun without him. When the sensation stopped, Draco opened his eyes, having clenched them shut, and hastily looked around.

He was in a corridor by the Great Hall, and as he wracked his brain, trying to remember where he had been an hour ago, he saw himself walking with Harry down the stairs. The sight made him dizzy—he’d been expecting to see himself but still, it was _weird_. He was over there and right where he was at the same time, and the one of him over there was none the wiser.

Draco (this one, the now one) quickly stepped behind a suit of armor to watch himself and Harry. From here, Draco couldn’t believe that he hadn’t realized something was off about his friend. There was a nervous air about him and he was wiggling his fingers by his sides, as if trying to work out his anxious energy in the smallest of ways.

“The obvious compromise is for one of them to get a cage,” Draco was saying, and Harry nodded. “Honestly, they’re bickering is making me want to spend less time in Gryffindor.”

“I guess we could go to Slytherin…” Harry suggested tentatively, and Draco watched as the other version of himself rolled his eyes.

“I’m just kidding,” he said, before the two of them disappeared behind the corner. Meanwhile Draco was wracking his brains as to how he was going to do this. He had to be careful, and Hermione was right that he couldn’t be seen.

Or… was she? Would it really be much harm if someone _else_ saw him?

Mind made up, Draco spun on his heel and hurried towards the Slytherin common room. It was packed, seeing that it was a weekend and it was too cold for anyone to be spending their time outside.

Draco scanned the common room, lighting up when he spotted Pansy and Blaise.

“Slytherin’s good enough for you again, is it?” Pansy commented once Draco stopped in front of her. She was lounging on one of the leather armchairs by the fire, her legs swung over the side of it.

“I need your help,” Draco said, getting straight to the point.

“He’s barely talked to us since we got back and now he wants a favor?” Pansy scoffed, turning to look at Blaise. He shrugged.

“Draco always wants favors.”

“I’m serious,” Draco hissed. He glanced furtively around and, once sure that no one was bothering to pay a couple of third years any attention, pulled the Time-Turner out from under his shirt.

“Are you kidding me?” Pansy shrieked, and Draco shoved it back where it belonged as people turned to glare at the thirteen-year-old girl making too much noise. Pansy sneered at everyone she made eye contact with.

“You’re an idiot,” Blaise decided, and Draco glared at him.

“Just help me, will you?”

“Are you about to go into the past?” Pansy demanded.

“No.”

“Then what do you need help with?”

“I’m already _in_ the past,” Draco corrected. “I’ve already messed up once and I’m here to fix it.”

“You’re a major idiot,” Blaise amended. “What do we have to do?”

—

Draco watched as his friends stormed into the library just in time, Harry looked anxious and jittery and just about to confess his feelings. He’d filled them in as they’d hurried to the library. Pansy had devoured the gossip like the ravenous beast she was and Blaise had just nodded knowingly, though Draco knew he hadn’t actually realized anything about Harry himself. He just liked to look aloof and all-knowing.

“Draco!” Pansy exclaimed, and the Draco sitting at the table looked up, raising an eyebrow at Pansy.

“What do you want Pans?”

“You have to come with us,” Pansy insisted. Only a little bit ago she had run to the Gryffindor common room to give the Time-Turner back to Hermione so history could properly repeat itself. It was a bit risky but… Well, Draco figured that everything would be okay in the end. Seeing as both the past and present version of him knew of the Time-Turner’s existence, he figured that hearing the news from Pansy that he’d managed to nick it from Hermione and give it a go wouldn’t be all too much of a surprise. And every idiot knew that to use a Time-Turner properly, the individual in the past had to disappear at the same time that they had before. It all had to do with some horrible time and space theory, but basically, if Pansy couldn’t convince _that_ Draco to send himself back in time then there’d be _two_ present Dracos, which wouldn’t bode well at all.

She’d also promised to break the news to the other Draco about Harry’s crush at him, which (current) Draco figured was only fair.

“But I’m doing my werewolf essay,” Draco protested.

“As if Lupin’s actually gonna collect that,” Blaise snorted. “He’ll say it was unfair of Snape to assign it, I’m sure.”

“Well…” Draco started.

“Now’s not the best time,” Harry said suddenly. He seemed to be holding onto his nerve with the last strength he had.

“Now _is_ the best time,” Pansy insisted.

“The only time, really,” Blaise added.

“Fine,” Draco snapped. “I’ll be back whenever these two idiots are done with me,” he told Harry, who, from this angle, Draco could see was wringing his hands in his lap.

“I’ll come with you,” Harry offered.

Draco had just opened his mouth, most likely to agree, when Pansy beat him to it.

“Sorry Potter,” she said snidely. “No Gryffindors allowed for this excursion.” Harry looked offended.

“Just yesterday you said we were best friends.” Harry obviously didn’t believe this. He found Pansy horribly annoying most of the time but he put up with her for Draco’s sake. Still, he clearly didn’t like his crush being taken away from him.

“And we are,” Pansy agreed with a smile that looked treacherous. “He’ll be back soon,” she promised, and then she was dragging the past Draco away.

Draco was left to stare at Harry through the bookshelves for a believable amount of time. Harry spent the first few minutes sulking, and the next few after that trying to study. Finally, he gave up and tugged Draco’s forgotten essay towards himself and started copying it. Draco figured this was a good time to make his reappearance.

“I would’ve helped you if you’d asked,” Draco said, and Harry jumped, knocking over his ink pot and ruining his essay. “Serves you right.”

“Draco!” Harry said, looking guilty. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Draco said easily, sliding back into his seat and stretching his legs out. They bumped Harry’s, whose eyes widened for a moment, but Draco didn’t move them away. One of his was slotted in between Harry’s, and he could feel Harry’s leg bouncing slightly beside his. “I’m not actually upset.”

“Oh, good,” Harry said. “Listen, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”

“Me first,” Draco interrupted. “I’ve wanted to tell you something too.”

“Oh.” Harry paused. “Um. Okay.”

“I know that you have a crush on Ron,” Draco invented wildly, and Harry’s mouth dropped open.

“ _What_? I don’t—”

“And it’s okay,” Draco said, talking over Harry. “There’s nothing wrong with being gay, really. But I don’t know if you should tell Ron.”

“I don’t—wait, why not?”

Draco had to bite down on a triumphant smirk. That’d gotten Harry’s attention, at least.

“Well, who knows how he’d react?” Draco said, and Harry frowned, thinking. “He could be surprised, or… not reciprocate your feelings. You never know, you know? Plus, we’re so young, he might not even know if he likes boys too.”

“I guess…” Harry muttered. “But that’s not really what I was going to—”

Draco laughed obnoxiously. “Like, if Pansy told me she liked me? I don’t even know what’d I say. She’s my best friend, you know? It’d just be… _weird_.”

“Oh.”

“Not that it’d be weird between you and Ron, necessarily,” Draco said hastily. “But, maybe that’d be his first thought. You know?”

“Yeah,” Harry said. “Um. Yeah, I get you. I guess I won’t tell him yet.”

Draco smiled at Harry, who smiled back weakly. He took out his wand and siphoned the spilled ink of Harry’s essay. “Just go ahead and copy mine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> time travel theory has boggled my mind and i've literally laid in bed talking to myself for an hour trying to figure out how it works so,,, if any of that time travel part didn't add up you know why


	6. A Slight Reunification

It was no surprise to Draco that he’d been completely right in every way about how idiotic it would be for the six of them to split up. After Harry left, Blaise and Pansy following happily in his wake, panic had ensued.

“What are we going to do?” Hermione had taken to muttering, over and over again under her breath. Ron had just looked shell-shocked and afraid, wondering aloud (and doing nothing to help the already tense atmosphere) what they would do if the others didn’t come back.

In the end, they decided not to go anywhere at all. “It’s best to just stay here and wait,” Hermione had said, and neither Draco nor Ron felt inclined to disagree with her. Besides, they still had no leads for any Horcruxes and even if they did, they’d all be feeling too anxious and out of it to willingly enter into such a dangerous situation.

Draco had spent the first day thinking of every curse he knew that he could put on Harry. Anger had driven out all his other feelings, feelings of concern and fear. He’d just wanted Harry to come back so he could hex him into next week. Draco had been so mad he’d even considered punching Harry the next time he saw him, despite muggle fighting being a demeaning way to fight.

Once Draco had passed off the locket, however, he’d stopped feeling so pissed off. He’d just been anxious, spending all the time he should’ve been using to think of Horcruxes to instead think of Harry, whether he was safe, whether he was hurt. It was ridiculous—he felt like he’d never been so worried in his life.

In the end, they didn’t have to wait an entire week to see the others again. It was on the third day that they returned with a loud _crack_ , their voices sounding too loud in the quiet that had fallen since their leave.

“Where is it?” Pansy demanded, the sounds of her cursing coming from outside the tent. “I swear it was right here.”

“Maybe you got the location wrong,” Blaise said, and for once, he sounded something other than bored—worried. Hermione and Ron had already leapt to their feet, and Draco quickly followed after them, shellshocked. They scrambled through the tent and out the flap into the surrounding wood, meticulously spelled over by Hermione. Pansy and Blaise were standing just on the other side of the barrier.

“Where’s Harry?” Draco said in a rush, scanning the surrounding area for the familiar shock of messy black hair, of clunky glasses and bright, green eyes. _“Where’s Harry?”_

Hermione ignored him, she was busy stripping down the enchantments around them, the protection. Draco stormed towards the edge of the protected circle, bursting through it and ignoring the uncomfortable way with which it seemed to press down on him, squeezing shut behind him.

“Draco!” Pansy exclaimed upon seeing him. “Where did—”

Draco shoved her aside. Behind her and Blaise, propped against a tree and sitting on the ground, was Harry. His head was lolling to the side, his eyes shut.

“What happened to him?” Draco snapped.

“It’s kind of a long—” Blaise began, but Draco realized he didn’t want to hear it. Not yet.

“Shut up,” he said, before bending down and wrapping one of Harry’s arms around his shoulder. “Help me, will you?”

Together, he and Blaise pulled Harry’s limp body upward. He was still warm, the blood still thrumming through his body— _not dead,_ Draco assured himself. Finally, the scene in front of them seemed to ripple, and then the wards disappeared and Hermione and Ron came into view. Ron had his wand raised as well, evidently having helped Hermione with the charms. They rushed forward as one.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Is he hurt?”

“What happened?”

“Get him in the tent,” Draco snapped, interrupting their promenade of questions angrily. Hermione had to stay behind, carefully putting all the protection spells back in place.

“Where do we put him?” Blaise said, looking around the room. Harry’s bed was the top bunk and they couldn’t very well put him up there.

“Just—put him on my bed, it doesn’t matter,” Draco said, and carefully, they lowered Harry onto his bed. With Harry laying down, Draco could easily see the slow fall and lift of Harry’s chest, and it helped him breathe easier. There was dirt on his face and in his hair and Draco, strangely, wanted to brush it away.

“What happened?” Ron asked, coming to stand next to Draco. He was standing stiffly, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. “Is he going to be okay?”

“He’s breathing,” Draco assured him, mainly just because he felt the need to point it out, to solidify it in his mind. Surprisingly, Ron moved closer to him, slinging an arm over his shoulder. Draco couldn’t remember the last time he and Ron had touched, but it definitely wasn’t an occurrence that happened often.

“Harry’s strong, he’ll be alright.”

“Will you two shut up?” said Pansy. “He’s _fine_. He just hit his head.”

Draco gasped. “Head injuries are dangerous!”

It was at this point that Hermione came barging back into the tent. Her hair seemed to have become bushier with her anger.

“ _Head injury_?” she exclaimed. “He could have a concussion! And do you know how many people go blind from head injuries? How is Harry supposed to beat Vo—”

“Hermione!”

“— _You-Know-Who_ when he’s _blind_?”

“I’m not blind.” For a moment, the tent was completely silent, until everyone registered just exactly who had spoken and it was once again filled with noise. Their voices overlapped each other as they shouted for attention and continued to demand to know what exactly had happened on their three days of absence. 

Harry groaned, wincing at the noise-level.

“Everyone shut up!” Pansy shrieked loudly. “You’re hurting his ears!”

“What happened?” Hermione demanded, again, and finally someone responsible opened their mouth to explain.

“His snake got us,” Harry said. “It was Bathilda Bagshot.”

“Great,” Draco muttered fiercely. “You’ve made him delusional.”

“He’s telling the truth,” Blaise insisted. “Apparently Dumbledore was friends with her, we thought she might know something about the Hallows’ whereabouts. Turns out she was just a snake.”

“Okay that doesn’t even make sense,” Ron said, summing up exactly what Draco felt. Perhaps all three of his idiot friends had been confunded.

“It’s true,” Harry croaked. Immediately, everyone’s attention returned to him. Hermione’s hands were fluttering anxiously at her sides and Ron took a hasty step forward, as if he could save Harry the trouble of speaking by being closer to him. In the end, Ron summoned a glass and filled it with water, determinedly marching it to Harry’s side. “Thanks,” Harry muttered, sitting up with some difficulty and sipping on the drink. “But his snake—it was hiding in Bathilda’s body, we think she’d been dead for a while already. I guess V—You-Know-Who was one step ahead of me.”

“How’d you hit your head?” Hermione asked. Now she, too, had come forward, and she knelt beside Harry and began impatiently prodding at the back of his head. Harry winced.

“Ow, Hermione! Cut it out.” He leaned forward, away from her hands. “It brought me upstairs, said it wanted to talk to me alone, and then it attacked me. I hit my head on a desk or something.”

“There’s something else,” Pansy finally said. Draco looked at her, trying to ignore the way his heart was pounding away uncomfortably in his chest. Harry had gone and almost gotten himself killed and Draco _wasn’t there_. What would he have done if Harry hadn’t come back?

Looking guilty, Pansy reached into her pocket and withdrew a wand—snapped almost clean in half, clinging together by the strings of a feather. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It must’ve broken in the fight. I managed to pick it up before we apparated away, but…”

Harry was looking at it openmouthed, his eyes wide with fear. “Is that…”

“I’m sorry,” Pansy said again.

“Maybe we can fix it,” Harry said frantically. He was scrambling upright now, which certainly couldn’t be a good thing for his recent head injury. No one who was knocked out a mere ten minutes prior should be moving around so much.

“Lay down,” Draco tried to instruct him, but Harry wasn’t listening. 

“Somebody give me their wand,” he insisted. “I’ll just—I’ll just use Reparo.”

“Harry,” Hermione said, her voice soft, sympathetic.

“No, Hermione,” Harry said. His words sounded sharp and curt. He appeared to be clenching his teeth together.

“Here,” Draco said. He held out his wand. Harry didn’t bother to thank him before snatching it, holding his hand out impatiently towards Pansy.

“Potter,” Pansy said. “I’m just not sure—”

“Give it to him,” said Blaise. “So he can know for sure.” 

Tentatively, Pansy stepped forward, ignoring Harry’s outstretched hand and placing the broken wand on the bedspread before him. 

Harry took a deep breath. “ _Reparo_ ,” he whispered, flicking Draco’s wand at his own. The two halves of the wand twitched towards each other feebly. Harry’s breath shook. With a wet sniff, he scrubbed the heel of his hand across his cheek. “ _Reparo_ ,” he said again. “ _REPARO_!”

The wand was beyond repair. Harry’s lower lip was trembling.

“We’ll get you another wand,” Ron said suddenly. “We’ll—we’ll go steal one, if we have to.”

“We _don’t_ have to,” Draco said. “We already have a spare, he can just use that one.”

“You brought along a spare wand?” Blaise said incredulously.

“He likes to be prepared,” Pansy shrugged, looking completely unsurprised.

“Dumbledore gave it to me,” Draco explained. He climbed onto his bed, reaching over Harry to rummage through his bag, stuffed between the bed and the side of the tent. He pulled out the wand, much longer than Harry’s old one had been. It looked so different from Harry’s, Draco was almost afraid it wouldn’t work, would be totally incompatible.

Just like before, when he’d taken the wand out of the box Scrimgeour had handed it to him in, he felt the power thrumming through it. It was like it was alive, like it was full of tension ready to snap. It made Draco want to put it down. He almost feared it _would_ snap, that it would break and release its power on him.

“Here,” Draco said, eager to get rid of it. For a moment, barely a second, both his and Harry’s hands held the wand. The tension didn’t feel so bad then, didn’t feel so quite like it was going to snap. As he let go, Harry’s eyes widened, his hand tightening around the wand. He was staring at it intensely, his chest rising and falling a bit too quickly.

“Woah,” he breathed.

“Does it work?” Ron asked. 

Harry pointed the wand towards Ron’s chessboard. “ _Wingardium Leviosa._ ” Pansy shrieked as the entire board flung itself into the air, the chess pieces ricocheting off the tent’s ceiling and shooting back to the floor. Harry was sitting up straight now, his wand still held held in the air.

“Might take a bit of adjustment,” Ron said weakly. He picked up a knight that had landed by his foot.

“Yeah,” Harry agreed. Draco watched as Harry slowly lowered his hand, his fist, still holding his wand, coming to rest in his lap. Nobody noticed as, in the chaos of the wand’s revealed power, Harry’s old wand fell off the bed, forgotten.

—

Draco laid in bed listening to the sounds of everyone breathing. Everyone had gone to bed long ago, Harry much earlier than the rest of them. Despite arguing that he felt fine, it was obvious how exhausted he felt from his recent injuries and Hermione had insisted he drink some dittany diluted in tea. The shit had knocked him right out, and with nothing better to do, Draco had climbed into Harry’s bed to sleep, seeing as his was currently occupied. 

Across the room, Ron let out a snort, shuffling around in his bed with a groan. Draco sighed, rolling over and letting his hand dangle over the side of the bunk. He couldn’t sleep for some strange reason. Maybe it was the built up stress of the day, the tension and anxiety he’d felt at the thought of something happening to Harry, something happening and Draco not knowing about it.

Suddenly, something touched Draco’s hand, and it took everything he had in him not to scream and yank his hand back where it belonged, tucked right next to his body instead of the open air where any monster could get it. Except that it wasn’t a monster, of course. It was a warm, gentle hand, lightly touching his fingers, caressing his hand.

_Harry?_ Draco thought, squinting his eyes disbelievingly into the darkness. But why? Was he trying to wake Draco up, assuming he was already asleep in the first place? Should Draco pretend to wake up, poke his head over the bunk and ask Harry what was going on?

Harry’s hand stopped playing with his, his fingers instead gripping onto his and just holding on. It couldn’t have been very comfortable for Harry, his hand stuck straight up in the air with the sole purpose of holding onto Draco’s.

Draco bit his lip, wondering if he should put a stop to this. Surely Harry wasn’t trying to wake him up. He was just being Harry, a lovesick fool who sometimes couldn’t help doing the dumb things that presented themselves in his brain, such as telling his pureblood crush he liked him or grabbing hold of his supposedly unconscious hand in the dark.

Instead of doing anything, Draco just closed his eyes. So what if Harry wanted to hold his hand? It wasn’t like he was going to get any ideas from it—he knew Draco was asleep, or thought he was, anyway. And… well, Draco didn’t entirely mind. It was nice to know that Harry was there, right close by, not some unknown distance away anymore, possibly getting hurt, possibly in danger.

Right then, Draco decided not to let Harry do something so stupid ever again. And even if Draco couldn’t convince him not to, at the very least he would accompany Harry to wherever he decided to disappear off to. He wouldn’t let them be so far apart, where Draco couldn’t be there to save him if need be. Surely _he_ wouldn’t have fallen for that snake being disguised as that stupid old woman? He wouldn’t have let Harry get hurt, he was sure of it.

Involuntarily, because surely Draco wasn’t stupid enough to do something like this of his own accord, his fingers tightened around Harry’s. Below him, he heard a soft gasp. Harry’s fingers pulled away from him slightly, before tightening, instead.

Draco knew he should pull away. Unless… maybe Harry would just think his hand had twitched in his sleep? Draco didn’t want to let go yet, didn’t want to let Harry go. He was afraid he’d have nightmares, as he had the last two nights. Afraid he’d dream of Harry dying, of Harry scared. And why had he been dreaming that so much, anyway? Pansy and Blaise had been gone too, were in as much danger as Harry was, obviously. Did he really, at least subconsciously, think Harry was that much more incompetent than them? That he would be the one constantly in danger?

“Draco,” Harry said. So softly, so quietly, that Draco could almost pretend he’d imagined it. He could certainly pretend to be asleep, to not have even been awake to hear its utterance. But then it came again: “Draco?”

He shouldn’t. Draco knew he shouldn’t, respond, that is. But… maybe it was important. Maybe Harry really did have a concussion and thought he was dying—Draco had no idea what concussions could do. All he knew was that Madam Pomfrey could heal it in probably two seconds flat, and with resources that worked much faster and better than Hermione’s questionably bought or stolen dittany. 

“What?” Draco whispered back. Harry sucked in a breath. His fingers twitched where they were interlocked with Draco’s. They tightened.

“I just—I wanted to know if you were awake. I can’t stop seeing Bathilda… I mean… the snake, I guess.”

“Anything I can do?” Draco asked. There was a pause.

“Sit with me?”

It wasn’t a request Draco was unfamiliar with. There’d been a time, once, where’d they’d had sleepovers all the time. There’d been a time when Harry wouldn’t have to ask, where Draco would just already be there. This had stopped sometime after third year, when Draco decided that sleepovers were for kids and he wasn’t a kid anymore. Honestly, it probably had more to do with the fact that Draco had caught himself staring at Blaise in the bathroom. Realizing this, he’d been filled with fear and unease and had decided to ignore it—the easiest way to ignore it, of course, was to avoid looking at boys. And he couldn’t sleep in the same _bed_ as one either, obviously.

Draco wasn’t so stupid anymore. He knew what it meant—knew that there was a reason his heart raced when he saw the smooth planes of Blaise’s chest, the muscles of Ron’s back as he reached for something up high, the horrible, curly mess of Harry’s hair. Not that Draco would ever act on these things, it was just that he noticed them. He acknowledged them. And he didn’t do anything about them.

After he’d stopped staying over in Gryffindor so often, the rare occurrence of Harry asking him to stay would arose. Draco always told himself he wouldn’t stay, or that he wouldn’t stay the entire night, at least. And Harry knew better than to ask as such. He wouldn’t ask Draco to sleepover in so many words. He might just ask, perhaps, for Draco to sit with him.

And Draco never said no. Harry wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important, anyway. Whenever he asked, they would climb in Harry’s bed, both fully dressed, pretending like they weren’t going to end up falling asleep that way anyway. They’d sit shoulder to shoulder, leaning against the head of Harry’s bed, silent. Just being together was enough.

Draco didn’t answer. He just slid off the bed, wincing as it creaked with his movements. He crawled onto Harry’s mattress, pulling the blanket over his lap as he pressed his side against Harry’s.

Silently, Harry reached over and grabbed his hand. Draco didn’t have it in him to pull away.


	7. A Slight Bit of Insomnia

**FOURTH YEAR:**

Draco huffed, his heart pounding in a mingled mix of annoyance and anxiety. Honestly, whoever thought it’d be a good idea to make an entire crowd watch an enormous hedge maze—through which, they could see nothing—was a fucking idiot. Draco had ten galleons on Dumbledore.

“This is stupid!” Pansy finally burst out, her hands clenched into fists on her lap. Draco had been able to see her slowly and slowly getting more wound up, closer and closer to exploding.

“What is?” Draco drawled. He knew—of course he knew—but it was his job to stay calm. Well, technically it could be Blaise’s job to stay calm, he was doing a marvelous job of it anyway, but it wasn’t like anyone ever looked to him for guidance or comfort.

“Shut up Draco! Aren’t you worried about him?”

Draco ground his teeth. They’d been waiting for nearly an hour now. A mere few minutes after all the champions had disappeared into the maze the band had stopped playing music, the crowd had stopped cheering. Now it was just filled with bored, idle chatter. A few rows below Draco, Hermione and Ron sat together tensely, looking just as anxious as he felt.

“I’m sure he’ll be fine,” Draco insisted. For weeks before the last trial he and Hermione and Harry had been making good use of empty classrooms, teaching him any spell they found that could possibly help him. And surely he must be close to the middle of the maze now? Twice, there’d been red sparks, and those in the audience who’d actually been paying attention had gasped, but now it’d been silent for nearly a half hour.

Though his assurance seemed to have calmed Pansy down, it did nothing for himself. He couldn’t help wondering how it was that every task was supposedly harder than the last—the first task had been a _dragon_ for Merlin’s sake! And Draco still wasn’t exactly sure what had happened during the second task, seeing as he’d been knocked out at the bottom of a lake for it. That experience had left him more annoyed than anything else, seeing as it meant that Harry still had feelings for him. Why else would he be the thing that Harry would miss most?

All of a sudden, the entire crowd erupted with noise—first cheers, then shrieks. Draco stood on top of his seat, his heart shoved in his throat as he tried to see what was going on, who was down there.

And yes—laying on the ground, on top of— _was that Cedric Diggory_?

Draco shoved his way through the people in front of him, struggling to get to the ground, to Harry.

“My boy!” a man was shouting. “That’s _my boy_!”

Draco elbowed a sixth year Hufflepuff out of his way and jumped onto the ground, stumbling forward. Harry was still lying on Cedric, sobbing.

“He’s back,” Harry was saying. “He’s back. Voldemort’s back.”

But Draco could hardly get there, the crowd was pressing forward, people were still in front of him. And Mad-Eye Moody was urging Harry to his feet, pulling him away. Draco hated that man! And not just because he’d turned him into a ferret, once, when he and Harry had been arguing. Sure, it wasn’t exactly respectable to throw a hex at someone’s back, but it was different when it was your _friend_ , someone who would forgive you.

Everyone was still shouting and screaming and Draco was still annoyingly without answers.

“Where is he?” Pansy demanded breathlessly, coming up by his side.

“With Moody—come on!”

—

Harry couldn’t really think about anything—after everything that had happened tonight his brain had turned to mush. Voldemort was back. And Cedric had _died_ —Harry had seen it. And thinking of it now made him feel like he couldn’t breathe, like he might throw up and die himself. It should be him who was dead anyway, not Cedric, not someone who never should’ve been in that graveyard in the first place.

And then there was all that business with Mad-Eye Moody—Mad-Eye Moody who wasn’t actually Mad-Eye Moody and was actually Barty Crouch’s son, Barty Crouch. No, none of it made very much sense, and Harry wasn’t going to dwell on it for much longer. He was going to continue laying here, staring at the hospital wing’s ceiling and wondering if all of this, somehow, was just a nightmare.

Madam Pomfrey had bustled off some time ago, disappearing into her office with final instructions for him to rest. As if he’d ever be able to comfortably sleep again after tonight!

Harry jolted, his blood pumping with adrenaline as the door banged open. _It’s Voldemort!_  his brain screamed at him uselessly. Equally as uselessly, Harry found himself laying completely still in the bed, his eyes clenched shut. If it really were Voldemort, he’d just be an easy target. Plus, he’d stopped believing hiding under covers could protect him when he was seven, when Dudley would sneak into his room in the middle of the night to play tricks on him and hurt him.

“Harry,” a familiar, entirely welcome voice hissed. Harry felt his eyes shoot open, felt them well up with tears—tears of relief and fear and everything in between. He was so scared, so utterly shaken, and finally Draco was here.

“Draco,” Harry gasped, barely biting down on a sob. He scooted over in his bed, a silent, desperate invitation. “Sit with me?” he managed. Draco even looked on the verge of saying no. He didn’t like having sleepovers anymore, Harry knew, but now he just needed, he just…

Draco climbed into the bed. Immediately, Harry collapsed on him, clutching his shirt with one hand as he pressed his face into his shoulder. Draco ended up wrapping an arm around him tentatively. Silent tears slipped down Harry’s cheeks as he clung to his friend.

Harry knew that everyone had been banned from the hospital wing. He’d heard Hermione and Ron complaining outside of it, begging to be let in to see him. Madam Pomfrey had said no, absolutely not, and Dumbledore had promised to explain the night’s events to them instead. Now, in his mind’s eye, Harry could see Draco standing silently beside them, glowering angrily as he listened to Dumbledore’s explanation, the whole time plotting to break into the hospital wing.

“I’m sorry,” Draco finally said.

“For what?” Harry muttered. His voice sounded thick and nasally, but he’d managed to stop crying. Not looking at Draco, he scrubbed his face with his sleeves, breathing deeply.

“For not being there,” Draco said. “For not saving you.”

Harry laughed weakly. “I’m glad you weren’t there,” he conveyed. And then, much too suddenly, Harry remembered something. He remembered the grown wizards in masks, remembered them surrounding him, surrounding Voldemort. He remembered hearing their voices—hearing Draco’s father’s voice.

“Draco,” Harry said urgently. “I have to tell you something. You’re not going to like it.”

“I already know Voldemort’s back,” Draco said. “We’ll protect you.” Harry didn’t know who ‘we’ was, and there wasn’t any time to ask.

“Draco, your father,” Harry whispered. “He was there—he was a, a Death Eater. He was helping Voldemort.”

Immediately, Harry knew that Draco didn’t believe him. He stiffened by Harry’s side, his posture rigid and perfect, the way he sat when they ate dinner as a family during holiday’s, Draco’s house-elves serving them and his whole family wearing uncomfortable, itchy dress robes. Harry never knew why they did it—usually it was just Draco and him eating together in one of the smaller dining rooms, but he knew that whenever Draco’s father informed them that they’d be having a family dinner that night, Draco would sit just like this. He’d speak in a clipped, posher-than-usual voice.

“You’re lying,” Draco said coldly. Harry winced. He didn’t sound like Draco. It was hard to explain, but… Well, most of the time when he spoke to Harry, he spoke softly—or more softly than usual, anyway. He still teased Harry, still picked on him, but there was warmth behind his words. But whenever it wasn’t the two of them alone, whenever they were with other people, Draco sounded different, colder, sharper. And now Draco was talking to him as if he wasn’t Harry.

“I’m not,” Harry insisted. “He was there—I know his voice, I heard him.”

“Then you were mistaken,” Draco said. “My father is _not_ —my father wouldn’t—he wouldn’t _do_ _that_!” Draco snapped.

“Draco—”

“Harry,” Draco interrupted, his voice harsh. “You’re trying to tell me that my father is an evil Death Eater. He loves you! He took you in, you’ve lived with us all these years!”

“I know that! But maybe he was lying, or pretending, or…”

“You’re wrong!” Draco exclaimed. “Maybe Voldemort bewitched you! My father’s not a Death Eater, Harry!”

Harry swallowed thickly. Draco was glaring at him, breathing heavily, harshly.

“I’m not,” Harry whispered. Furious, Draco stood, storming back out of the hospital wing. As he left, Harry noticed that he was wearing pajamas under his robes and wondered if he’d been planning on staying the night.

The second he was gone, the fear came back, the anxiety. He couldn’t stop seeing his face, Cedric’s, he eyes cold and lifeless, his face pale. Couldn’t stop seeing him falling to the ground, boneless, dead.

“Kill the spare!” Voldemort had said. Voldemort, who was back now. Voldemort, who had Harry’s blood, who could touch him, hurt him. Voldemort, who wanted to kill him.

Harry turned onto his side and pulled his knees to his chest. He was shaking, for some reason, but it wouldn’t stop. He couldn’t close his eyes without seeing Cedric, or Voldemort, or Pettigrew. All he could hear was his shallow breathing and Draco’s father’s voice, the whooshing of Avada Kedavra coming at Cedric, striking him dead.

Harry didn’t sleep that night. He just stayed still, staring at the room beyond him, until finally the darkness of night lifted, turning into day.

—

Even after Harry was released from the hospital wing, he still couldn’t sleep. There was less than a week of school left and Harry didn’t know what he was going to do. Draco wasn’t talking to him. And he couldn’t go back to the manor with Draco anyway—it wasn’t like he could go live with one of Voldemort’s minions and hope not to be turned in. Plus, what if Voldemort decided to pay Lucius Malfoy a visit? He could do stuff like that now that he had a body again.

“He’s still not talking to you?” Ron whispered at breakfast, looking furtively at Harry. He was whispering because Hermione was across from them, but for some reason Harry didn’t doubt that she knew about his feelings for Draco. A general rule of thumb was just to assume that she knew everything anyway.

And Harry had told Ron about his feelings the previous year. There’d been that horrid day when he’d been planning to tell Draco about his crush on him when Draco had beat him to it, only assuming that Harry liked Ron. Disheartened and embarrassed, Harry had immediately left, and, well—told Ron. He was his best friend, anyway, and it didn’t make sense to keep his feelings about Draco from him in the first place. He’d hardly bothered to waste a thought on what wizards, much less purebloods (though Ron wasn't exactly a sterling example of a typical pureblood) thought about gay people. Thankfully, it wasn’t even a problem.

“Ron,” Harry had said to Ron, bursting into their dorm and climbing into Ron’s bed. He’d yanked the curtains closed around them. “I have to tell you something.”

“A secret?” Ron had said with his eyebrows raised.

“Yes.” And then— “I have a crush on Draco.”

Immediately, Ron had done as any best friend would, and teased him about it. After that, however, he’d gone about making plans with Harry. _First we should find out if he’s gay—we’ll have to spy on him, of course, but we have the Invisibility Cloak. And we’ll have to come up with a way to make him fall in love with you, obviously._

Their plans had been fruitless, in the end, but it’d still been fun, and it’d been nice being able to act like a normal kid with a crush for once. Having Ron know made it better too, as Harry finally had someone to talk to about it, though not without a modicum of teasing. And still, it wasn’t entirely bad having a crush on someone who was also your friend. Harry got to talk to him every single day, got to spend boatloads of time with him, and Draco was none the wiser.

Even funnier were the times they were all together. Draco had never really liked hanging out with Ron and Hermione before, but after that day in the library, when he’d assumed Harry had a crush on Ron, he’d been more inclined to hang out with them. Harry figured it was because Draco thought he was doing him a favor, letting him be near his crush more often. When they were all together, Draco would raise his eyebrows at Harry and wink, as if they were in on a secret—Harry’s crush on Ron. After doing this, once Draco had looked away, Ron would look at Harry and make the very same face.

Now, Harry just stared glumly across the hall. Draco was saying something intently to Blaise, whose lips rose slowly into a smirk. When Draco realized Harry was staring at him, he glared, and Harry sighed.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Harry admitted.

“You can come to my house for the summer,” Ron suggested, misinterpreting what Harry meant, although that was definitely a problem as well.

But in the end, Dumbledore came up to Harry himself. For a bizarre moment, Harry wondered if Dumbledore was going to insist he live with him for the summer.

“You’re going to have to go back to the Dursleys,” he said solemnly, and Harry felt his mouth fall open.

“Ron said I could go to his house, Professor!” he insisted, but Dumbledore just shook his head. Harry had told him all about how he’d heard Lucius Malfoy at the graveyard, and now he was wondering if he shouldn’t have. Maybe he should’ve just pretended to go home with Draco, and then, at King’s Cross he could’ve sneaked off with Ron.

“It’s not that,” Dumbledore said gently. “I was a fool, Harry, to think you’d be safe with the Malfoys. But old families have old magic, old protections—I figured you’d be safe in that house. Now it is apparent you must go back to your family home.”

“Why?” Harry said, desperate. He didn’t care what Dumbledore said, he couldn’t go back there, he _couldn’t_.

“You and your aunt share the same blood, Harry,” Dumbledore explained solemnly. “A different kind of magic will protect you there.” And that was that.

And now, not only could Harry not sleep because of his nightmares, his eyes chased with purple bruises, he also couldn’t sleep because he knew that each passing hour brought him closer and closer to Privet Drive. He couldn’t help remembering, all those years ago, when Uncle Vernon had been in that Wizarding shop—his boggart. It’d changed, of course. Now he knew Dementors were scarier than his uncle. And maybe now… maybe Voldemort was worse than the Dementors. But that didn’t stop the fact that his uncle was still terrifying, his old home still full of horrible memories.

Harry hadn’t seen hide nor tail of his blood relatives in three whole years. He’d been living with Draco all this time and now he was expected to go _back_?

On the last day of school, the night before he boarded the Hogwarts Express To Hell, he lay awake, staring at the canopy above his bed. Hermione had insisted he talk to Madam Pomfrey about his inability to sleep, which had done him no good. She’d given him sleeping potions which either didn’t end up putting him to sleep and just made him exhausted instead, or made him sleep so deeply that even his nightmares couldn’t wake him, and he was stuck in a terror-filled landscape for so long that by the time he woke up he was worn out and drained, worse off than if he just hadn’t slept in the first place.

His curtains jerked open, and Harry gasped, his wand in his hand and pointed at the intruder’s face in less than a second.

“Woah,” Ron whispered. “It’s just me—get that out of my face.”

Letting out a shaky breath, Harry nodded, shoving his wand back under his pillow.

“What are you doing?” he asked. Ron ignored him and climbed into his bed. He didn’t say anything, but he stayed there for the night, his side pressed against Harry’s, comforting and familiar. That last night before going back to the Dursleys, Harry managed to catch a couple hours of sleep, his body occasionally drawn and tricked into relaxation because of Ron’s presence.

Draco didn’t sit with him on the train, though both Blaise and Pansy popped in to say goodbye to him and to tell him that Draco was being a whiny baby.

“Are you ever going to tell us why you two are fighting?” Pansy demanded, standing in the door to his compartment.

“No,” Harry said. With a groan, Pansy marched out of his compartment, Blaise following more slowly behind her.

“They’re always leaving us out of things!” Pansy said in annoyance, her voice fading as she got further down the carriage.

“It’ll be okay,” Hermione assured him. “We’ll send you lots of letters, Harry, I promise.” Harry could only nod, a strange fear rolling in his stomach, tugging at his lungs. He couldn’t breathe properly.

It was ridiculous, wasn’t it? He’d faced Voldemort. He’d dueled him and he’d escaped. He’d battled a dragon and swam to the bottom of a lake and resisted the Imperius curse and he was _scared of his family_ , his stupid muggle family. What was the point of that?

The train ride was long, but it felt much too short by the time they arrived. Harry hugged both Ron and Hermione goodbye, and it was as they were exiting the train that he saw Draco, still in his compartment. He was pulling on his robes, having taken them off to be comfortable during the ride. When he saw Harry, he glared. Harry glared back.

And thus begun possibly the worst summer of Harry’s life. The Dursleys had been glad to be rid of him, and his coming back had them angrier than the time he’d accidentally vanished that glass at the zoo, releasing that snake.

Living in their house again was like living in a mine field. They shoved him back in his cupboard, all his (few) possessions still in there from before Draco’s dad had taken him in. Worst of all, they took his wand from him and locked it up somewhere he couldn’t find, especially because most of the time they locked him in his cupboard as well. It seemed that all Harry was even able to feel was anxiety. He was constantly pacing what little room he had, hitting his head on the low ceiling, or sitting on his bed and silently panicking. What would he do if Voldemort came? He didn’t even have his wand!

It didn’t take long for Harry to decide that living at Draco’s, even in the presence of a Death Eater, would be better than this. He should’ve not told Dumbledore about Draco’s father, should’ve just gone to live at his house and hoped for the best. He couldn’t help wondering what it was like there, currently. If his father was now open, with Harry out of the house, about his Death Eater activities. Or maybe he still wouldn’t tell Draco. Maybe he’d say that Harry was crazy and ridiculous, that of course he hadn’t been there in that graveyard, that he should’ve just come to live with them like usual.

It didn’t help that even through it all, Harry couldn’t seem to hate Draco for not believing him in the first place. He just wanted to be with him again.


	8. A Slight Confession

"Loverbirds still asleep?"

"Yep."

Harry came to slowly. His back hurt. He wasn't laying down, which was odd. Instead he was mostly sitting up, his back pressed into what felt like the side of the tent. And pressed against his side...

Slowly, disbelievingly, he let his eyes flutter open, already peering desperately to his right. Draco was leaning on him heavily, his neck at an odd and most definitely painful angle just so that his head could rest on Harry's shoulder. And still, after all the hours of the night, their fingers were entwined. Harry tried desperately to calm the rapid beating of his heart, carefully peering down at their hands. Draco’s was paler than his—a lot paler—and his fingers were long, slim and elegant where Harry’s were thick and short. His nails were short and trimmed and clean, the edges squared off, and Harry had to find it in him to hold back an amused snort, because who the hell had time to take care of their _nails_ in the middle of a war?

Still barely able to believe it, Harry gave his hand the tiniest of squeezes, reveling in the warm feeling of their fingers intertwined together. Usually when Harry asked Draco to sit with him, Draco would disappear after a while. Most of the time after Harry fell asleep, but always before he woke up. But here he was now, still holding Harry's hand, leaning heavily on him.

Harry knew he shouldn't get his hopes up. Draco, of course, was just been being nice. He knew that things were harder now, more difficult, more stressful. He knew that Harry, more than everyone else, felt the distinct burden of it all, because it was his fault any of the others were even feeling it anyway. And so he was just being nice, just letting Harry have his company for a little longer than he usually did. And, seeing as this conclusion was obvious, Harry should stop the insistent thudding of his heart, the one that beat a rhythm something along the lines of _what if, what if, what if? What if he likes me too?_

It was hard to crush the heart and the little bit of hope it managed to carry, even after all this time of useless pining. Maybe Draco _did_ have feelings for him. Maybe... maybe he was just now realizing them. Maybe the pressure of the war, the seclusion, had led him to realize that Harry could love him better than anyone else ever could. In that moment, Harry had to physically restrain himself from leaning over and kissing Draco on the forehead. He just looked so soft, so sweet, his eyelashes brushing his cheeks, his lips slightly parted as he breathed. With every exhale his breath puffed against Harry’s neck, sending shivers down his spine and raising goosebumps all along his skin. Harry was holding himself so stiffly, so still, as he was afraid any sort of movement would send Draco jolting awake. And Draco was already difficult enough to manage in the mornings, much less after he’d been caught sleeping on a friend.

It was when Harry looked up, looked forward, that he had to stop himself from jolting. There, sitting in a chair and smirking at him, was Blaise. Harry widened his eyes, trying to convey without words for Blaise to _go the fuck away._

And then Pansy slipped out of the small kitchen, holding a mug and sipping from it, her smirk just as vicious and horrible as Blaise's. Harry was starting to panic. If Draco woke up he'd go crazy! He'd already be pissed off enough, knowing Harry had witnessed him sleeping. But if he knew that Pansy and Blaise had seen it as well, he'd probably have to kill them.

And then, as if matters couldn't get any worse, Ron strolled inside the tent, lifting the flap from outside, and glanced over at Harry.

“Oh, you're awake," he commented, much too loudly when Draco was _sleeping_ —only moments away from a rage that could leave the entire lot of them wishing they’d ran when they’d had the chance. Harry, still wide-eyed, was now flicking his eyes towards the tent's entrance, trying to will them all away. Pansy shook her head, her smile like a shark’s.

“It’s at times like these I wish I had one of those muggle things,” she sighed wistfully, her head tilted to the side and both her hands wrapped around the mug now, deriving its heat.

“A camera?” Harry muttered, his confusion making him lose his head for a moment. He inhaled sharply, looking at Draco to find—he was still asleep, breathing peacefully. Harry breathed a sigh of relief.

“Wizards have cameras, you idiot,” Pansy snapped. “But muggles can look at them right away, I think. I don’t know why ours take so long to see. _We’re_ the ones with magic.”

“Look,” Harry said, ignoring Pansy’s tirade and staring between the three of them intently. “Can you all just—go somewhere else?” he asked desperately.

“No can do,” Blaise said, now crossing his legs and leaning forward, a single fist supporting his chin as he continued to stare at Harry and, by extension, Draco. “It’s such a rare sight—Draco sleeping,” he commented. “Wouldn’t want to miss it.”

“Blaise—”

“And a special moment in your life as well,” Blaise continued. “I mean, how often do most people get to cuddle with the one person they’ve been in love with for like, a billion years?”

Harry felt his face go bright red and his eyes darted to Draco in fear.

“Shut up!” Harry hissed, at the same moment that Ron exclaimed, “you _knew_?”

“Who doesn’t know?” Pansy said with a roll of her eyes, and Harry heard himself splutter, though still quietly. He seemed to be the only one still aware of the fact that Draco was _asleep_ and able to wake at any moment—which definitely meant Harry's feelings for him shouldn’t be mentioned so casually and _loudly_.

“ _Him_ ,” Harry intoned, his voice still urgent. 

“Whatever,” Pansy muttered. She slurped her tea. Loudly.

“What’s going on?” Hermione asked, walking out of the kitchen. Her hair was pulled up into a messy bun on her head and she was holding a piece of toast in one hand and her wand in the other, the horcrux dangling from her neck. She frowned. “Are we having a group meeting? Without me?”

“No, Harry’s just cuddling with Draco,” Pansy answered. Hermione’s eyes widened. She leaned to the side, peering around Blaise, looking at Harry and Draco—

“Hermione!” Harry whispered, his voice sounding oddly like a whine. “Make them leave!”

“You guys—” Hermione started, but at that exact moment, Draco groaned in his sleep. The result was immediate.

Everyone exchanged wide, terrified glances. Ron, quick as a whip, pulled Harry’s Invisibility Cloak over himself, not that Harry knew when he’d even gotten it. Harry, in a moment of panic, flopped his head to the side and pretended to be asleep. Draco groaned a second time.

Harry felt him slowly sit up, and then freeze, as his eyes undoubtedly opened and came to rest on Blaise, Hermione, and Pansy staring straight at him.

“Um,” he mumbled, his voice thick with sleep. He sat up more. Harry stayed unbearably still. “Um,” he repeated.

“Draco!” Blaise said, all bravado. “Good morning!”

“Shh!” Draco hissed suddenly. “Can’t you see he’s still sleeping?”

“He’s been sleeping like the dead this whole time,” Blaise said. “I’m sure he’s fine.”

Draco cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable. “Well. He couldn’t sleep last night, so…”

“You don’t have to explain yourself to us, Draco,” Pansy said elegantly. Harry could almost imagine her walking primly across the room and dropping onto the worn couch, somehow managing to not spill a drop of her tea. “We all need to sleep with a friend, sometimes.”

“Right,” Draco grunted. He clambered out of bed, though his movements were slow, as if he were trying not to wake Harry. “Whatever.”

“Draco—”

“Gotta piss,” Draco muttered, and there was the sound of just a few steps of bare feet on tent flooring before a loud grunt. “What the hell—”

“Watch where you’re going!” Ron exclaimed.

“You’re _invisible_!” Draco retorted, before the sound of a small scuffle ensued and Draco, presumably, stormed outside of the tent. Most likely to sulk.

Harry peeked a single eye open. Everyone was staring at him. Harry shrugged, biting his lip. Once Draco came back, Harry pretended to wake naturally, groaning and stretching and all that.

“Any tea?” he inquired.

“On it,” Draco grunted, disappearing into the kitchen. Harry met Blaise’s eyes, which now looked bored, the entertainment of the day apparently finished. He shrugged.

“Well that wasn’t too bad,” Blaise ventured.

—

It might not have been one of Harry’s best ideas, but for some reason impulsivity got the best of him and, well, it happened. He’d thought about talking to his friends first, but he could imagine what they would say pretty well, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear it.

“I dunno, mate…” Ron would say cautiously, when Harry brought up the idea of maybe possibly telling Draco that he was in love with him. “It’s just, there’s kind of a lot going on right now. And if things don’t go right—not to say that they wouldn’t!—it might cause some… tension… you know?” 

Back when they weren’t camping everyday, almost all of their time spent in constant company of one another, Ron had been a strong campaigner of letting Draco know how he felt. It was all ‘you never know’s and ‘but _what if_ ’s and Harry had never had it in him to do so. Maybe he could’ve done it once, but the older he got the more he felt was at stake, and the more terrifying the idea of telling Draco became. And so he never did so. And he never really, desperately wanted to until, well, now.

Harry didn’t even really know where this was coming from. Sure, he’d cuddled with Draco, and held his hand but… was that really what was making him so sure he wanted to tell him? The smallest, slimmest possibility that maybe, _maybe_ Draco had let that happen because he reciprocated Harry’s feelings?

Getting his hopes up was stupid. Telling Draco was stupid too, probably. But still…

Hermione would’ve pursed her lips, if Harry had asked her. He knew it was because she didn’t think Draco liked him back, though she never said so to Harry so explicitly. Harry had asked her why, back in Hogwarts—why she thought Draco would never like him.

“I never said that!” she’d protested, but Harry had just rolled his eyes, persuaded her to actually _tell_ him what her ingenious mind had come to the conclusion to. 

“I just… don’t know if he’d be _inclined_ to date… a boy.”

“So you think he’s straight,” Harry had concluded which, yes, was exactly what he’d concluded himself ages ago. Draco never talked about crushes, sure, but that was probably because purebloods of his caliber were always arranged to marry someone not of their choosing. What was the point of having a crush? And also, because, well… Harry just figured that if Draco were gay, he’d tell him. After all, Draco knew of Harry’s own sexuality, all his friends did, so there’d be no reason for him not to tell Harry in return. 

But, “I didn’t say that,” is what Hermione had said next, making Harry frown in confusion.

“You think he _could be_ gay?”

Hermione had bitten her lip. And then, “I don’t think it’s very good of us to wonder about his sexuality,” she’d decided. “Obviously, if he is and hasn’t told us it’s for a reason. He wouldn’t want us to be talking about it anyway.”

Harry had grumbled something in response and gone to complain to Ron, who’d offered him a game of chess to help cheer him up.

And Harry knew better than to actually ask either Blaise or Pansy for romantic advice. 

First of all, Pansy would probably shriek when he asked. And then, without even considering the consequences, she’d say, “ _Yes_. Yes! Oh if you don’t tell him I’ll have to. Merlin, just imagine what it would be like if you two were together. Can I watch you tell him?”

And Blaise would say something along the lines of: “If you want rejection I can let you down easier.” Or perhaps, “Can’t be any worse than when Pansy tried to kiss him in second year.”

So in obvious conclusion, Harry had turned to none of his friends for advice. Instead he’d turned simply to his heart, which had turned him directly towards Draco, whom he’d asked to talk to in private.

“What’s up?” Draco said, resting casually against a tree in a way that suggested he was just pretending to be casual.

“I just—I wanted to tell you something,” Harry said carefully. Draco’s eyes seemed to widen, momentarily, before they went right back to normal, his expression even. Harry wondered if he’d imagined it.

A small part of Harry had always wanted to tell Draco about his feelings for him. Maybe it was dumb, but Harry had never been the really secret-keeping type. He often put his thoughts and feelings right in the open, and the fact that he’d hid his feelings for this long was almost unbelievable. But he’d always wondered how Draco might react, what he might do or say. And even if he didn’t feel that way for Harry, it wouldn’t be harmful to at least have his feelings out in the open, would it? Sure, it might be a little awkward at first, but in the end, he was just a seventeen year old kid in love with his best friend. That wasn’t too horrible, surely.

He also knew that families like Draco’s looked down on being gay. Harry hadn’t realized it when he was living with Draco, he’d still been too young, too oblivious to realize, but he knew better now. Pureblood families wanted to keep marrying each other, keep producing heirs, keep their bloodlines clean. And while Harry knew Draco thought nothing bad of Harry being gay, or _anyone_ being gay, he didn’t really know about Draco’s plans for later in life. At one point, surely, he’d planned to marry the right girl and give his parents the heir they wanted, but now? After everything that’d happened? A small, optimistic part of Harry insisted that maybe, just maybe, he would do whatever he wanted. And maybe Harry could be what he wanted.

“Harry,” Draco said, and Harry blinked, snapping out of his thoughts. Draco was tapping his fingers along his arm, his eyebrow raised.

“Right!” Harry said. “Right. I wanted to tell you that I—well, I mean, logically we could all die at any moment—”

“Harry!” Draco blurted, his eyes wide as if it were ridiculous for him to say something like this out loud. But they were all _thinking_ it. They were all thinking it _always_ , the fact that death could very realistically be looming right around the corner and they’d never really know, would they?

Ignoring Draco’s outburst, Harry continued. “ _And_ I wouldn’t want to die without ever having gotten this off my chest, without ever having telling you that I—” Draco eyes were wide, wide, wide, “—that I love you.”

Everything slowed down. Harry could hear his heartbeat in his ears, loud but slow, one thunderous _ba-bum_ in his head, and then seconds, minutes, _hours_ until the next one. _Ba-bum._

Draco was just _looking_ at him. Harry had expected more of a reaction, truthfully. Maybe a gasp or his mouth dropping open or something. Instead he was just standing there, looking less surprised than he probably should. But then, Draco had always been pretty good at his poker face.

“Harry,” Draco said, and Harry felt his face flare red.

“Draco,” Harry muttered, when no other words from Draco were immediately forthcoming.

Draco looked almost pained. His lips were pinched shut tight and Harry wondered if he would explode, if he would yell at him. “We’re in the middle of a war,” Draco said gently, and Harry blinked. Not necessarily the answer he’d wanted to hear, but… Well, it wasn’t one he’d been dreading either, was it?

“And?” Harry prompted. He was starting to feel extremely embarrassed. He’d put his feelings out on the line and now they were being casually talked about. Harry almost wanted to retreat so they could reconvene later, when his confession wasn’t so fresh.

“And now isn’t really the ideal time for… this,” he said. Harry felt himself look away, feeling smaller and smaller. But at least Draco wasn’t yelling at him. At least he wasn’t weirded out.

“Okay,” Harry said weakly, about ready to run away now. He took a step backwards, avoiding looking at Draco.

“Harry,” Draco said, and his tone of voice forced Harry to look up at him. “It’s okay, you know. I—I don’t mind.”

“Right,” Harry said sheepishly. Before he could react, Draco was striding forward, pulling Harry into a rough hug. Harry made a sound akin to a squeak, his face pressed into Draco’s shoulder. They didn’t hug much, so this was… out of the ordinary.

“Thanks,” Harry said as Draco released him, which, okay, yeah, probably wasn’t what he was supposed to say, but it was what came to mind. So, still looking at the ground, he spun and speed-walked back to the tent, wondering just how he was ever supposed to avoid Draco and bask in his embarrassment when they all lived approximately two inches from each other.

Even worse than his embarrassment, however, was the stupid voice inside his head. The one that, even after all this time, still managed to be pathetically hopeful. _He didn’t say he didn’t love you,_ it insisted. _Just that now wasn’t a good time._


	9. A Slight Realization

**FIFTH YEAR:**

“Just talk to him,” Hermione begged. Her voice had long past started sounding shrill; now each word she uttered got on every last one of Draco’s nerves.

“For the last time,” Draco spat, stopping in the middle of the hall to face her. Two third years grumbled in annoyance from behind him but a sidelong look had them quelling. They scattered and walked around him and Hermione. “I am not talking to Harry.”

“But if you just apologized—”

“For _what_?” Draco demanded, his glare now full of venom and directed at Hermione. “For not believing Harry? For not believing my father’s one of Voldemort’s minions?”

At this, several students around them flinched, looking his way furtively and creating a larger circle around him and Hermione. Saying Voldemort didn’t have the same effect as it used to. Whereas before, people were afraid to say the name because they thought it was cursed, thought it would bring on bad things or were just plain scared, now saying the name made you seem crazy. Saying it made it seemed like you believed in Harry Potter’s lies, the ones about He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named coming back from the dead.

And Draco wasn’t an idiot—he did believe that. He knew Harry was telling the truth in that regard, because he _knew Harry_. But when it came to Draco’s father, Harry was mistaken. That night he’d been injured, bloody, and probably hallucinating—it’d been something from the stupid dark recesses of his mind that had conjured Lucius’ voice from one of those masks.

Draco would _know_  if his father were a Death Eater. Last summer, Harry had gone back to his muggle home, which was all for the better, really, as Draco might’ve torn him apart if he’d come home with him. But if Harry /had/ come with him, he would’ve seen that he was wrong. It was a summer as normal as any other, though the house was quieter—obviously a result of Harry’s absence.

“Where’s Harry?” his father had said immediately, when he’d walked in through the front door of the Manor. His father had had a portkey arranged for him at King’s Cross so he wouldn’t have to come pick them up.

“With his muggles,” Draco had spat. “He’s being ridiculous!” His father hadn’t answered, apparently waiting for Draco to elaborate. “He—it’s insane, really—but at that graveyard, when Voldemort—”

“Don’t say the name.”

“The Dark Lord,” Draco corrected, “When he came back… Harry thought he saw you there. So he refused to come home with me.”

His father had let out a long, low hum. “In times of great stress the mind can conjure many things,” he’d said. “Our own making can be our own downfall—sometimes the mind can only cope by making a situation worse.”

“Exactly!” Draco had cried. “I told him that _of course_  you weren’t there and that he was being ridiculous but he wouldn’t listen!”

“Give him time,” had been his father’s advice. “He’ll come back around.”

And Draco had proceeded to have the most boring summer he could ever remember having. For some reason, he’d expected it to be different when he got back to school. He’d thought that an entire summer alone must’ve been beating Harry up as much as it was Draco, that they’d return to Hogwarts and be back to the easy friendship they’d always had—he’d been wrong.

He’d first realized, with a horrible inkling, that he was wrong on the train. Harry hadn’t come to seek him out, hadn’t come to sit with him, and it’d just been him and Pansy and Blaise riding to school together.

“Where are the Gryffindors?” Blaise had asked, peering curiously towards the door as if they were on their way, about to shove their way in and demand everyone budge up and make more room.

“No idea.”

“You’re not still fighting with Harry?” Pansy had said, sounding incredulous. Draco’s lack of answer had been answer enough.

And horribly, this had continued throughout the school year. Days turned into weeks turned into months of him and Harry _still not speaking_. Eventually, Draco realized that maybe this was it. That they simply weren’t friends anymore, that there was no way to fix it. Neither of them were ever going to admit they were wrong, now were they?

Halloween came and went, the day where Harry was usually sullen and quiet, his mind on his parents’ deaths—and for once, Draco wasn’t there for him. Christmas came and went, Draco going home to the Manor all alone. He didn’t ask Hermione what Harry would be doing, but she told him anyway. She told him everything, all the time—she told him so much that sometimes he felt like he was still hanging out with them everyday, still sitting in the warm Gryffindor common room with Harry beside him, close as ever. He could see Harry’s feet tucked under Draco’s thighs as he leaned against the arm of the couch, the rest of his body turned to face Ron or Hermione sitting across from them. Draco would grumble about it at first, but he always let Harry do it in the end.

Even despite not talking to Harry for the whole year, he knew almost as much as ever. He knew about the Order of the Phoenix, though Hermione seemed to have brought that up by accident. (She’d threatened to curse Draco worse than Voldemort ever could if he ever mentioned it to his father. Draco’s father _wasn’t_  in league with Voldemort but he agreed anyway, because Hermione was probably the scariest person he knew.) He knew about Harry’s secret club, in direct violation of probably several of Umbridge’s little rules. Draco stalked the halls as part of her Inquisitorial Squad at her behest, managing to keep himself out of trouble and keep her nose far enough away from Harry’s organization, not that he would ever let Harry know he was helping him even when they technically weren’t friends. Besides, it wasn’t like he’d been doing it _for_  Harry—he just… didn’t like Umbridge. She looked like a toad.

By Easter holidays, Hermione seemed more eager than ever to get Draco and Harry to make up. Draco assumed she tried to convince Harry just as often, which only meant that Harry was just as stubbornly refusing to talk to him. The fact that his scar was hurting almost constantly and he was having creepy visions and nightmares only reinforced the idea, in Hermione’s mind, that their whole group should be together instead of divided.

“Tell Harry to stop thinking my father’s a Death Eater, then,” Draco had snapped at her, and gone home to the Manor for the holidays. Quieter and quieter his home seemed with every visit, probably because Harry’s absence became even more prominent with time. Even his father seemed sullen and resigned, probably missing the slightly more joyous atmosphere to the house.

And… it was stupid, that Draco had sent Harry a letter. It’d surely been a result of loneliness, of being surrounded by quiet for far too long. It certainly had nothing to do with the fact that Draco was in the kitchen one night, having woken up thirsty and needing a glass of water, only to walk into the living room to see his father. Lucius hadn’t seen him, but he’d stood there, staring into the flames as if it had answers for him. Very suddenly, he’d let out a hiss, had grabbed his arm, and disappeared with a crack. Draco hadn’t known what to think, and he’d felt a prickle of unease which he’d ignored. Maybe his father had forgotten something at work. Maybe… maybe anything, a whole _world_  of possibilities were out there.

But that night, longing for his friendship had overcome him. His letter to Harry had been short—meaningless—really. Harry’s response had only been four words long, not even signed with his name, though Draco had recognized his handwriting immediately.

_Give Dobby a sock._

It’d been a stupid thing to do. Dobby knew Harry, would be able to Apparate to him if Harry so much as said his name, but Draco did it anyway. It wasn’t like his father would notice, there were tons more house-elves around the Manor for him to pick on.

“Draco—”

“What?” Draco snapped. He and Hermione still hadn’t moved, were still blocking the very middle of the hallway, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care. It was just that he was very on edge lately. He’d even started to fall behind on his schoolwork. He just wasn’t able to squelch that tiny, insignificant, horrible voice in the back of his mind, the one that demanded _what if?_  What if what Harry had said was true? What if he’d been right all along? What if Draco really had been the downright horrible friend Harry had thought he was this entire year?

_What if his father was a Death Eater?_

It barely made any sense. Draco didn’t _want_  it to make any sense. But he was hardly home, was he? His father could be doing anything while he was off at school. And… well, he seemed different lately. More tense. More strung out. He’d stopped sending letters to Draco—only his mother sent them now, but the last few from his father had been… strained. It couldn’t help but make him wonder…

“Just, have you even ever thought about it?” Hermione asked desperately. “Ever considered that what Harry says could be true?”

 _It can’t be,_  Draco thought desperately. “Why bother when I know it’s not?” Draco snapped, before finally turning and walking away. His class wasn’t even in this direction but he could hardly find it in himself to care. It really was horrible that he was cutting off his contact with Hermione, however—she was kind of the only thing tying him down lately. Pansy and Blaise were his friends, his _best friends_ , even, but they weren’t Harry. And Hermione was his tie to Harry. Hermione was what made him still feel close to him.

Draco didn't go to class that day, which while once would have been unthinkable for him was now just something he easily accepted. It didn’t seem like there was even room in his brain, anyway, for more knowledge. Too much of it was taken up by thinking about Harry and Voldemort and his father and Death Eaters.

The most he’d interacted with Harry in the past months, beside that letter, was with his eyes. Usually glares. But sometimes, rarely, he’d just catch Harry looking. It was only then that he bothered to let himself pretend that maybe he hadn’t fucked everything up completely—not just yet.

And somehow, surprisingly, miraculously, a chance for him to fix things came up. He didn’t feel quite ready to actually analyze the probability of his father being evil or himself being horrible, but there wasn’t much time for it anyway. There was only time for Umbridge, yelling at him, spittle landing on his face.

“That stupid Potter boy is _up to something!"_  she roared. She’d caught him by the shoulder in the hall, students rushing in every direction, mainly because there were fireworks going off a little ways down the hall.

“How can you be sure, Professor?” Draco drawled. Umbridge was literally shaking with rage, her fingers digging so tightly into his shoulders that he had to resist the urge to wince.

“Because it’s _always him_.”

She ended up sending Draco off with instructions for him and a few other members of the Inquisitorial Squad to “catch Potter”. Draco _did_  end up getting Pansy and Blaise to come with him, but only because he figured that Harry wouldn’t just set off fireworks without a reason, and that if it really had been him who’d done it then he wanted to know why, and maybe help.

It was abruptly obvious that Harry wasn’t very good at planning things. They found Ron guarding one corridor, telling everyone who came not to pass, that a stink-bomb had been set off down the hall.

“Malfoy,” he said, when Draco came sprinting from an intersecting corridor with Pansy and Blaise at his side. At this point it had become their goal to simply find Harry before Umbridge did.

“Weasley,” Draco said, coming to a halt and trying to stop panting. He hadn’t spoken to Ron for just as long as he hadn’t spoken to Harry. Ron was very steadfastly by Harry’s side. He’d been glaring at Draco from the opposite ends of hallways and classrooms all year; it felt strange to finally see it up close. “I suppose Harry’s somewhere behind you?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Ron spat. His eyes stuck on the stupid badge on Draco’s chest, the one Umbridge liked for them to wear when they were doing her duties. “Someone’s set off a stink-bomb.”

“Alright we’re not idiots,” Pansy snapped, glaring at Ron now. Ron made a face back at her, and during this childish display, Blaise simply stepped past Ron and kept walking.

“Wha— _get back here, Zabini_!”

“Sorry, Weasley,” Blaise said without looking over his shoulder and sounding completely unapologetic. Ron was staring open-mouthed at his back, his hand held loosely around his wand as if half-considering cursing Blaise.

“Close your mouth,” Draco commanded, shoving past Ron as well. “And stop being so stupid—we’re not here to turn you in.”

“But you’re the Inquisitorial Squad!” Ron protested, hurrying after them now.

“If we’d wanted to turn you in for your little club we would’ve done it months ago,” Draco drawled. “Now what’s going on? What’s Harry doing? Is he in danger?”

When Ron didn’t immediately answer, Draco looked over his shoulder to look at him. He expected Ron to look indignant or angry, but instead he just looked worried, his lip pulled between his teeth.

“Well… I think he’s going a little crazy?”

“Ooh,” Pansy said with interest, and Draco rolled his eyes at her. Anything mildly entertaining captured her attention this year, now that she didn’t get to hang around Harry all the time and get entertained from that.

“What do you mean?”

“Well—he’s been having these weird dreams lately—”

“Oh yeah. Granger said,” Draco said absently.

“She _what_?”

“What’s wrong with Harry?” Draco pestered.

“Well—he fell asleep during the History of Magic exam,” Ron explained. “But he thinks his dream was a vision, and… Well, he wants to break into the Ministry of Magic. He thinks Sirius is in danger.”

“That’s _stupid_ ,” Draco said emphatically. But it made sense—Harry would go to the ends of the earth for his godfather. He’d only known him since the end of third year, but they’d grown quite close in that time. Hermione had told him that Sirius was in the Order of the Phoenix now, that Harry got to see him more often, had seen him over the summer and during Christmas break. And now that Harry thought he was in danger…

“I know!” Ron agreed, and suddenly it wasn’t like Draco hadn’t talked to him for almost an entire year now, it was like he’d strolled into Gryffindor tower only to find Ron sitting on the sofa in the common room.

“Where’s Harry?” he would ask.

“Still asleep,” Ron would answer. Of course sometimes Draco just went ahead and woke Harry up anyway, having come all the way to the tower for the explicit purpose of seeing him, but other times he was feeling generous enough to let him sleep. And those times he would just plop down on the sofa beside Ron. Usually he’d read a book—there were always a couple scattered around the common room, probably Hermione’s doing—but sometimes he and Ron would just talk.

“He thinks it’s true though,” Ron said heavily, now walking beside Draco, Pansy on his other side, Blaise on Draco’s. “‘Cause at Christmas he had this dream about my dad—”

“Yes, I know, I know,” Draco said, waving it off.

“ _I_  don’t know,” Pansy interrupted, and Draco sneered at her.

“Sucks.”

“Harry dreamt my dad was hurt and he was,” Ron explained, and Pansy smiled winningly. “And now he thinks that since he dreamed of Sirius getting tortured—”

“Tortured?” Draco interrupted, incredulous.

“By You-Know-Who,” Ron said, nodding.

“Oh fuck,” Draco muttered.

“There’s no stopping him,” Blaise concluded dryly, which was a pretty good summary, really. Nothing would stop Harry from saving his godfather..

They’d just reached the classroom Harry was apparently in (“Hermione convinced him to at least Floo Grimmauld Place first, see if Sirius was really gone.”) when the door burst open, Harry rushing into the hall with a glower on his face and Hermione two steps behind him.

“Harry _wait_ ,” she was saying, which he was intent on ignoring. He only stopped because he was visible surprised, his eyes running over the four people before him, finally halting on Draco.

“Good job guarding the hall, Ron,” Harry sneered, and Ron’s expression morphed into one of hurt.

“Hey,” he protested. “What was I supposed to do? Hex them?”

“Yes?” Harry said, sounding incredulous, before pulling out his own wand.

“Harry, wait!” Hermione cried, and Harry gaped at her.

“I’m not hexing them!” he snapped, before shoving his way through all of them and sprinting off down the hall. In a unanimous, silent decision, they all sprinted after him.

“What happened in there?” Ron demanded, now panting.

“Sirius wasn’t home,” Hermione said glumly. “Just Kreacher.”

They were lucky, being able to charge out of the school without having somehow run into Umbridge or another righteous teacher, but they did. Draco half wondered if it was some sort of errant magic Harry was casting, a repelling charm so strong and subtle that they couldn’t hope to be stopped.

“Are we seriously going to the Ministry of Magic?” Pansy demanded. Just like that, Harry stopped.

“ _We_  are,” he said, pointing at both Ron and Hermione. “ _You_ ,” three jabs, one for Pansy, Blaise, and Draco, “are not.”

“You can’t stop us,” Pansy said suddenly, her chin up. Harry let out a frustrated noise, his hands going to tug at his hair viciously.

“I can and I will,” he said, leveling his wand at her.

“This is ridiculous,” Hermione reprimanded, and she shoved Harry and began leading the way, though why they were going to the forest, Draco didn’t know. “We need all the help we can get—let’s get going.”

“Help from a Death Eater’s son?” Harry said incredulously, his voice venomous. Draco didn’t respond, there wasn’t time, nor did he really have to will to conjure up a defense for his father. So he just marched past Harry, still standing in the middle of the grounds, shocked.

When they got to the forest, Draco found himself very surprised, and very grossed out, when Harry conjured several chunks of raw meat. He dropped them to the ground.

“Alright,” Blaise said. “I’ll bite—why the raw meat, Harry?”

“Thestrals,” Harry grunted.

“Oh great,” Draco muttered. “I was afraid you just wanted a snack.”

Harry didn’t grace this with a response, instead letting out a pleased hum a few moments later—Draco soon learned the cause of this. Chunks of the meat were shredded into midair, disappearing as they did.

“Let’s go,” Harry instructed.

“May I ask why we’re flying to the Ministry of Magic on invisible death horses?” Blaise inquired, stepping forward nonetheless.

“Umbridge took my broom,” Harry explained. “School brooms are too slow. Can’t apparate.” With that, he was swinging himself up in into the air, settling on something invisible and tall. He directed the rest of them to their thestrals, all of them uneasy as they carefully felt their leathery skin, climbing on top of them as well.

Flying on them was horrendous. Their wings beat uncomfortably under Draco’s legs with every flap of their invisible wings. The air was cold and the ground impossibly far below him, his entire body seemingly supported by nothing—it was unsettling to say the least.

By the time they made it to the ministry, cold dread began to build in his gut; he just couldn’t shake the feeling that nothing good could come from this.

—

He was numb.

It was probably rude of him to be numb, to be feeling anything for himself, when everything horrible had clearly happened to Not Himself. Ron had been almost strangled to death, had been still talking nonsense by the time they were whisked back to Hogwarts. Blaise was out cold, having received some head injury that Draco still didn’t have all the details on. Pansy was coughing up blood due to some curse that had hit her, and even Hermione had various cuts and bruises all along her body.

The only one who hadn’t seemed to have gotten hurt was Draco.

He didn’t know what to do. Mainly because he was afraid Harry might be dying. He thought he might be dying too if he’d seen his own godfather hit with the killing curse. Draco had been too far, too late, too unable to save Sirius, to save Harry. He’d watched as Harry had, much too far across the room, as his own aunt had killed him, as Sirius had fallen through the veil.

He’d seen the life go out of Harry’s eyes.

And he’d seen Harry run from the room. He hadn’t seen Voldemort possess him, which was probably a good thing, but he’d heard all about it. He knew the pain Harry had been in, could barely imagine the revulsion of having such a horrible being _inside your body_.

Draco knew all of this, had seen so much of this, had fought against so much of this, and still he felt numb. He felt numb because his father had been there, had been in robe and mask, had been firing curses at son and friends alike.

All this time, _all this time_ , he’d been refusing to talk to Harry, refusing to believe Harry, and Harry had been _right_. And now he was suffering. Now he was without his godfather, now he’d gone an entire year under entirely too much stress for a fifteen year old. Now he was fighting a battle, waging a war against a madman, and Draco hadn’t even been there by his side for the entire year.

He was a horrible friend. He didn’t deserve Harry, didn’t deserve to talk to him or look at him or _touch_  him, and yet here he was. Harry was asleep, the lights of the infirmary dim, too many of the beds filled with his friends, with people who, in the end, were just kids.

But Harry had a curtain around his bed, and Draco was inside it, watching Harry sleep. He was on his side, curled into a ball. His face was relaxed but his cheeks were red, rubbed raw with hands wiping tears away. Draco couldn’t help himself—he climbed in.

The bed was warm from Harry’s body, and Draco slid into it easily, shuffling so that he was facing Harry, as close to him as he could be. He told himself it was an accident, when his knee bumped Harry’s and his wrist clonked against Harry’s slightly extended hand. Harry’s eyes flickered open, too bright and too green without his glasses, and he stared at Draco. And then his face crumpled.

“You’re here,” he whispered, his voice thick, and Draco nodded.

“I’m sorry,” he said, the words bubbling up in him and forcing their way out, as if they’d been waiting inside him this whole time. “I was stupid—stubborn—you were right, you’re always right, I’m sorry, he was a Death Eater, I’m sorry I’m _sorry_ —” Harry wasn’t even listening. He was wrapping his body around Draco’s, shuffling around in a way that left his body lying almost completely on top him, his face pressed into his neck and his hands clenching the material of his shirt.

“I missed you,” Harry said, his voice choked. “I can’t—I can’t do it without you.” He sounded so weak, and Draco knew he was wrong. Because Harry was the strongest person he knew, and the weakest was probably himself. Harry could do anything without him.

“I missed you more,” Draco confided. His arms had found their way around Harry, were holding him closely, tightly, more so than he’d ever dared. But he was just making up for an entire year’s worth of hugs and touches that didn’t happen. This didn’t mean anything more than what it was—two friends reuniting—so he could hug Harry as hard as he wanted, touch him as much as he pleased.

His neck was wet, he realized, Harry’s quiet, snuffling sobs shaking his body where it lay on Draco’s. His hands were trembling where they held Draco, his breath coming too fast.

“Shh,” Draco said into his hair, which smelled like sweat and blood and _Harry_. He rubbed his hands over his back, over and over again.

“He’s gone,” Harry gasped. “He’s gone Draco he’s—he’s _dead_.”

Draco didn’t know what to do. So he held Harry tighter, harder, tried to crush the pain out of him himself. Harry held him just as hard, and they fell asleep like that, so completely entwined in one another’s arms that they couldn’t possibly begin to tell where one of them ended and the other began.

When Draco woke, it was because Madam Pomfrey was hastily excusing herself from the space around Harry’s bed. She’d probably been surprised to see it occupied by two—they were every bit as entangled as they had been falling asleep.

If this were any other day, if Draco hadn’t seen Harry in nearly a year, if he didn’t feel like moving away from Harry would be like ripping off his own limb, now would've been the time when he would’ve escaped. He would have slid from the bed slowly and carefully, managing to disentangle himself from Harry without waking him.

Instead, he just turned his head into Harry’s hair. He brushed his fingers along Harry’s body. He told himself he would never do it again.

Harry didn’t wake for an entire hour, and that entire time Draco laid there and held him and touched him. When Harry woke, his voice was scratchy.

“Draco,” he said. He tensed slightly, as if expecting Draco to shove him off. “I missed you.”

“So you’ve said,” Draco said softly. He didn’t want to pull away from Harry either, really.

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know. That your dad’s a Death Eater. That we haven’t talked…”

“I’m sorry too,” Draco said. “For everything.”

“Come with me.”

“What? Where?”

“To the Dursleys’,” Harry said, determined. “They’re—they suck, honestly, but I don’t think they’d be able to do anything if I just showed up with you.”

“Harry…”

“I’m serious. It’s not like you can just go back to the Manor.”

Draco swallowed. He really… hadn’t thought about that. At all.

“Okay,” he said finally.

“Really?”

“Yeah. Your cousin’s our age, right?”

“He’s a dick…” Harry said warningly, cautiously. Draco hummed.

“We’ll terrorize him.”

And that summer, they did.


	10. A Slight Bit Oblivious

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi guys! school's starting next week so updates will more likely be happening in the evening my time (eastern) instead of in the morning/noonish. still on tuesdays though! 
> 
> also just a quick thank you to everyone reading this! your comments mean the world to me and i hope that you've all been enjoying it so far! there's only four chapters left so hold onto your hats!

The atmosphere in the tent was, one could say, awkward. Draco had figured it would start to feel normal again after a few days, but a few days had come and gone and everything was going as horribly as ever.

What had conspired between him and Harry was embarrassing and most certainly a secret, and so naturally, all of their friends knew about it. Ron, because Harry had likely told him first hand. Hermione surely knew before Harry had even had a chance to tell her, seeing as she was able to read people and situations so well. And Draco didn’t have a doubt in his mind that Blaise and Pansy knew too—they’d probably eavesdropped while the very thing was happening, the bastards.

And miraculously, none of it was Draco’s fault. The horrible tension between them all, the constant, unending looks they were receiving from their friends—it was all because of Harry. No one seemed able to break the tension, either; the six of them had never been quieter. It was as if they were all sitting around a death bed instead of trying to win a war.

Harry hadn’t said a single word to Draco since his confession of love—in fact, he was barely talking to anyone lately. Draco was pretty sure the sound of Harry’s own voice was causing him embarrassment, which was extremely unfortunate, as Draco actually liked it when Harry talked. And the words he said. They made him laugh.

But now Harry was silent as could be. He didn’t even like to _look_  at Draco. Sometimes Draco would catch his eye and Harry would immediately look away. It was happening so often that Draco was starting to become irrationally angry because of it. He started staring at Harry more and more often, waiting for the other boy to just _look at him already_.

When that malformed plan proved to be absolutely useless, Draco decided to take things into his own hands. He _would_  get Harry to look at him, and talk to him, and to stop being so incredibly awkward that it permeated through the air. And what better time to do this than in the middle of the night? Harry couldn’t possibly avoid him then.

It seemed like an especially good idea because it would give Draco a reason to climb into his bed again. (They’d come to an unspoken and possibly strange agreement where they’d switched beds ever since Harry got injured. It happened that same night, maybe thoughtlessly on Harry’s part, but he climbed back onto the bottom bunk and fell asleep. Instead of putting up a fight, Draco slept in the top bunk. He didn’t mind, anyway. The bed smelled like Harry, and he’d always liked the way Harry smelled.) It was stupid, and maybe a little pathetic, but… Draco loved being close to Harry. He loved sleeping next to him, loved it when they were pressed together, when he could feel Harry’s skin, always warm, against his. He liked hearing Harry’s soft breaths as he fell asleep, liked feeling them against his shoulder and fluttering past his hair.

So many times back in Hogwarts he’d denied himself the pleasure of sleeping with Harry, and all because he was ashamed of himself. He’d ached to say yes back when Harry had still invited him to sleep over, before he’d realized that Draco was never very willingly going to say yes again. And he just should have! He should’ve let himself enjoy the little things, should’ve let Harry sit closer to him in the common room, should’ve let himself climb into Harry’s bed, maybe should’ve let Harry tell him he loved him without erasing time. He should’ve let himself enjoy Harry, because now the war was in full swing and people were dying left and right and in all reality, couldn’t that be Harry one day?

The very thought sent a sharp stab of pain through Draco’s chest, made his breath stutter in a momentary panic. He always told himself not to think like that, always berated himself when his thoughts strayed to such morbid topics, but it were true. They _were_  constantly surrounded by danger, balancing somewhere close to the precipice, dancing much too close to death. And here he was, not letting himself enjoy something simple like cuddling with Harry? It made him angry at himself, at all the little things he might never have a chance to feel again. And so what if he was gay? Even if they did all manage to survive, what was the point of continuing his family line? What was the _point_  when, assuming Harry won, his father had effectively dragged their name through the mud?

 _I could just take Harry’s name_ , a stupid, rebellious part of Draco thought. _I could become Draco Potter. He would let me. He **loves**  me._

And then he shook himself. Why was he thinking like that anyway? He could never marry Harry! Because… Because…

It wasn’t like he cared what his father thought anymore. He didn’t care about being a pureblood or furthering the line or the name. He couldn’t marry Harry because he didn’t love him.

Right?

Draco huffed through his nose. He was being ridiculous. Of _course_  he didn’t love Harry. Love didn’t just sneak up on people unexpectedly, when they weren’t paying attention or even trying to! It was just late at night. He had no control over his thoughts. If that Loony Lovegood were here she’d probably tell him he had Wrackspurts or something—maybe these thoughts weren’t even his own!

Even as he thought this, he actively tried to ignore the part of his brain that brought up a very different, very specific point. Harry hadn’t been trying to fall in love with him when he was twelve. It _must_  have just snuck up on him. He must have just realized, all at once, that he was in love with Draco.

Draco turned over, staring intently at the side of the tent. He didn’t love Harry. It would be… it would be _ridiculous_  if he loved Harry. He wouldn’t have turned Harry down if he loved him, for one thing. And people in love were constantly thinking about the people they loved! Draco wasn’t constantly thinking about Harry! He wasn’t thinking about how green his eyes looked, how vulnerable without his glasses on, how long his eyelashes were. He wasn’t thinking about his horrible messy hair, which was in all actuality probably the softest thing Draco had ever touched. He wasn’t thinking about the way he smiled, lopsided and soft—about how he still found time to smile and laugh even _now_ , even when the world was crumbling and Voldemort was gallivanting around murdering innocents.

He didn’t think about Harry’s soft hands or the way he sometimes whispered in his sleep. He didn’t think about how he was shorter than Draco, just barely, but how he seemed so large when he was fighting, how he always seemed like the biggest person around, the strongest, the fasted.

He didn’t think about Harry’s lips, soft-looking and plump and almost always chapped. Pink, and probably shining because Harry was horrible and wetted his lips instead of just finding some goddamn chapstick. And he bit them too, tugged them into his mouth when he was concentrating, pouted them out whenever he was lost in thought.

Draco never thought about any of those things.

Right?

With wide, on the brink of panicking eyes, Draco decided now was probably the best time to talk to Harry. Mainly because he needed a distraction, needed to stop thinking about Harry so much. And sure, maybe talking to Harry wasn’t the best way to stop thinking about him but… Well, it was what Draco wanted to do. He wanted to fix things between them, didn’t he? Even though he’d already told Harry that he didn’t mind him being in love with him and the fact that he was acting awkward now and ruining the atmosphere between their friends was all his own fault.

So Draco would just… talk to Harry. Soon. Now.

Draco made a sound that he would later deny was a squeak when his plan was foiled—by people invading his own bed. Yes, people. Plural.

“What are you doing?” Draco hissed as Pansy and Blaise dragged him from his bed. Literally dragged, pulling him down from the top bunk and sending him toppling towards the floor. He only didn’t collide with it because Blaise had a strong arm around his stomach. Draco was instead sent crashing into him.

It was unsure how Harry slept through the commotion, and even more unsure how he slept through Draco’s following protests as he was dragged out of the tent and into the night.

“What the fuck!” Draco snapped, the second they were outside. His eyes widened as he realized they weren’t alone—Ron and Hermione were there too. “I can’t believe you two were part of this orchestrated attack,” Draco sniffed.

“It was necessary,” Hermione assured.

“Was it? Because I would’ve agreed to speak to you all if you’d just, I don’t know, _asked_?”

Ron hummed. “You’re right. We didn’t think of that.” And he apparently wasn’t lying, either, as the four idiots before him exchanged sounds similar to _‘ohhh, yeah, we totally could’ve tried that first’._

“So what do you want?” Draco snapped. He crossed his arms tightly over his chest, covered only by a thin white t-shirt. His arms had already erupted into gooseflesh in the cold of the night. The days had recently become chilly, the leaves changing color, which only made the nights that much colder. Draco hadn’t thought to go to bed wearing more than a shirt and a pair of pajama pants seeing as his midnight excursion was only supposed to have taken him to Harry’s bed. Everyone else looked properly dressed, though. Hermione was wearing a fuzzy jacket.

“We want you to talk to Harry,” Pansy said, her eyes narrowed at Draco as if she suspected him to argue. He threw his hands into the air in frustration.

“What a great idea! Why didn’t I think of it myself?” Draco said sarcastically. Ron stepped forward to slap him comfortingly on the shoulder.

“We can’t all have our bright moments all the time,” he consoled. Draco glared at him. Ron continued to pat his shoulder, now looking unsure.

“Right,” Draco said.

Seemingly assured that Draco was going to talk to Harry and end the horrible tension between them all, everyone traipsed back inside, looking proud of themselves. Draco decided not to talk to Harry just then, partially because he was no longer quite in the mood and partially because everyone else would simply pretend to be asleep while eavesdropping.

Except Draco wasn’t sure he could just climb into his bed and go to sleep. What if he got in there and thoughts of Harry starting attacking him again? What was _wrong_  with him, anyway?

Draco was still debating this when Hermione came up to his side, grabbing onto his elbow. He jumped, only then realizing that he’d been staring at Harry, watching him sleep. His glasses were laying on the bed beside him, just begging to be crushed. He was laying on his side, one hand extended and his fingers curled. His chest rose and fell slowly with every breath, his lips slightly parted. Draco swallowed thickly, looking away.

“Want a cup of tea?” Hermione suggested. It probably wasn’t best to have one so late, but Draco already couldn’t sleep anyway, and so he agreed. He followed Hermione into the kitchen portion of the tent, slightly separated from the rest of it, and leaned against the counter as Hermione went about making tea for the both of them. Neither of them spoke, neither of them broke the silence, and Draco almost wished Hermione would. He was concentrating on everything she was doing intently, afraid that if he stopped his mind would wander, would pick up where it had left off.

By the time Hermione handed him a mug, warm and wonderful in his hands, he’d already worked himself into a proper state of panic. Because he was starting to realize, with a terrifying amount of certainty, that maybe he really did, stupidly, horribly, have feelings for Harry. More than feelings. Love feelings, perhaps. Merlin.

“You want to talk about it?” Hermione asked quietly, leaning against the counter beside him. Draco ignored her, took a sip of his tea, burned his tongue.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said through a wince. He sighed. He probably wouldn’t be able to taste anything tomorrow.

“It’s okay you know,” she said softly. Draco looked at her out of the corner of his eye but she wasn’t looking at him, just staring down at her tea. She took a sip. (She didn’t wince. Draco wondered if maybe she’d had the foresight to cast a cooling charm on it first.)

Draco grunted for her to go on, and normally he would have thought himself better than someone who grunted.

“If you like him,” she said. Draco couldn’t breathe. “Harry,” Hermione clarified.

“Knew who you were talking about, thanks,” Draco muttered. It figured that she knew he was gay. It was stupid to assume she didn’t already know everything, really. Blaise knew too. He definitely knew, though Draco still denied it despite the fact they both knew he was lying. And Pansy probably knew as well—she knew everything that wasn’t her business. At this point it was probably best to just assume that even Ron was in the know. Draco was a lot less in the closet than he’d ever wanted to think.

“So? Do you?”

_Do I?_

He thought of Harry. Harry laughing, talking, sleeping. Harry gesturing with his hands, Harry rolling his eyes at Pansy, Harry grinning in triumph at Ron. He thought of Harry doing anything and everything and felt warm inside. He also felt stupid. How was he just realizing this _now_?

And what was the point of lying to Hermione? Or even to himself, for that matter?

“I might have a slight… inclination,” Draco admitted. Finally Hermione turned to look at him. She was smiling.

“Are you gonna tell Harry?”

“No way,” Draco said immediately, sharply. Hermione frowned. “We’re in the middle of a war. It would just be distracting,” Draco explained. That was definitely the only reason. Not because he was scared of the thought of actually dating someone. Dating _Harry_.

“It might be… relieving,” Hermione ventured, but Draco just shook his head.

“It would be bad,” he decided. “You’re not going to tell Harry, are you?”

“You’re my friend too, Draco,” Hermione said. “I wouldn’t tell your secrets either.”

And despite the tea, Draco had a much easier time falling asleep after that.

—

Draco was walking about ten paces behind Harry, who still hadn’t realized he was being followed. It made Draco wonder how Harry had lived this long.

Still, he didn’t feel too inclined to alert Harry of his presence just yet for a variety of reasons. Or maybe just two. The thing was, he’d have to actually _talk_  to Harry, which would probably be horrible. Harry would be a giant stuttering mess, embarrassed and blushing and probably wishing for death. Honestly, the whole business of it all made Draco wish Hermione still had a time-turner he could steal—that way he’d at least be able to save Harry from his misery.

And furthermore, well… Harry looked good from the back. It was a view that he didn’t too often appreciate—mainly because he was normally surrounded by so many people and staring at another boy’s arse kind of really gave away the fact that you might be gay, which everyone already knew, apparently. Maybe Draco should’ve been letting himself stare at Harry all these years—maybe then he wouldn’t have only just realized he was in love with the idiot.

Realizing he'd stalled for long enough, Draco picked up his pace a bit, hurrying to catch up.

“Harry!” he called. Harry jumped, dropping the bundle of sticks he’d been carrying in his arms. Draco flicked his wand, collecting them neatly in the air by Harry’s side.

“You scared me,” Harry said.

“Did I?” Harry had stopped walking now and so it was easy for Draco to catch up to him. He leaned against a tree, eyeing the now floating bundle of sticks. “You were doing that the muggle way.”

“I forgot my wand in the tent,” said Harry, which was barely an excuse. Harry always forgot he had magic when it came to simple things like picking up firewood.

“You can’t just leave the wards without your wand,” Draco scoffed, his hand tightening around his own wand reflexively. They’d walked far enough away from the tent that they wouldn’t be able to see it anymore, even if it hadn’t been spelled invisible to anyone outside of the wards.

“I was in a hurry.”

“Why?”

“Everyone was staring at me in there. It was weird.”

“No one was staring at you.” This was a lie—everyone _had_  been staring at Harry, completely and utterly indiscreetly. Draco had been waiting for the perfect opportunity to talk to Harry and dispel the weird air around them but he’d been forced to act earlier, seeing as everyone’s staring had clearly reduced Harry to running away.

Draco tried to think of a way to say ‘stop being awkward’ nicely. “And stop avoiding me.”

“What?”

“You haven’t spoken to me once since telling me you loved me.”

Harry’s face immediately went red, his eyes wide behind his glasses. “Y-You don’t have to say it so casually!” he exclaimed.

“Why not?”

Harry scratched the back of his neck, looking stumped.

“You don’t have to be embarrassed,” Draco continued. “It’s not a… bad thing.”

The fact that Draco was even daring to bring it up seemed to be making it all the more embarrassing for Harry.

“That doesn’t make it something I want to talk about,” Harry muttered.

“How come?”

“Well what if you loved me?” Harry demanded. “And I just talked about it. You’d feel awkward because it’s your feelings out in the open.”

Draco had six years worth of marks to prove he wasn’t stupid. He had top marks on his O.W.L.s, verifying the exact opposite, really. But in that moment, Draco couldn’t claim for a single second that he wasn’t a complete and utter idiot.

“I do love you,” he said. Except that he hadn’t realized he’d said it. It’d just been such a loud mantra in his head, ever since his realization the night before. It was as familiar in his thoughts as a spell, he could call it to the front of his mind just as quickly as he could cast _lumos_. He hadn’t excepted the thought to eject itself from his mouth, to grace the air and Harry’s ears, to make Harry gasp, make his eyes go wide and his face pale.

“You do?” he whispered.

 _Fuck_ , Draco thought, but didn’t actually say. “Um,” he did manage to say.

Harry took a step closer to him, looking awed, looking soft and in love and disbelieving. “Draco,” he said, so quietly, so easily it made Draco want to step forward too, made him want to collapse into his arms and hold him close.

“But we can’t,” Draco forced himself to say, before Harry couldn’t get any closer. Draco would lose himself in Harry, he just knew it.

Harry looked broken. “Why not?”

“There’s a war, Harry,” Draco insisted, trying to convince himself as well. “It needs our full attention right now.”

“Fuck the war,” Harry said vehemently. “Fuck Voldemort!”

In between one breath and the next, everything went to shit. Cracks filled the air, as did wizards, and in mere moments they were surrounded, a dozen wands pointed directly at them.


	11. A Slight Responsibility

“Draco,” Pansy said, swinging around the door.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. “Didn’t someone already report you for sneaking into the boys’ dormitories?”

“That was you,” Pansy snapped, now crossing her arms. Draco shrugged. Sometimes he was going to his dorm to get _away_  from Pansy—it was reasonable that he didn’t want her allowed in. Besides, after having shared the bed with Harry all summer, he wasn’t sure he ever wanted anyone in his again.

Not that sharing a bed with Harry was particularly bad in any way. It was just… strange, for some reason. At least when it was happening every night. Sometimes Draco hadn’t even been able to sleep, his mind whirring much too fast for the late hour.

He could remember how pissed Harry’s uncle had been when he’d showed up with Draco. It was all ‘he will _not_  be allowed into our _house_!’ and ‘who do you think you are, bringing one of _your kind_?’ but all Draco had to do was fiddle with his wand for the stupid Dursleys to stop arguing and start piling their shit into their muggle-mobile. It was terrifying, though Draco had tried his best to not let on that he was scared shitless.

“You can’t fool me, boy,” Harry’s uncle had spat, spinning the wheel and making the car turn. Draco’s hands, curled under his thighs, had been sweating profusely. “I know you lot can’t do your magic tricks outside of school.”

“My father works in the government,” Draco had piped up. While it was true, it couldn’t really do anything for him anymore. Not now that his father was a Death Eater. “It’s never really concerned anyone if I do magic outside of school.” This had been a complete lie, and if he _had_  performed magic his father would’ve had to go through a lot of trouble to keep his record clean, but Harry’s stupid muggle relatives didn’t know that.

And his father _would_  keep his record clean, Draco was sure. He’d received letters from him all summer, telling him how it wasn’t too late, how he could still join his father back at the manor, how he wouldn’t let the Dark Lord hurt him. It was unsettling, realizing how deeply Voldemort had his claws in his own father, and Draco hadn’t even realized. He hadn’t responded to a single one of his father’s letters, though he’d kept sending them, nonetheless. Lucius had assured him that he’d lied to Voldemort and everyone else now living in their manor (at the risk to his own life, he'd written) and said that Draco was now going to school at Durmstrang to learn superior Dark Arts to train for becoming a Death Eater. Lucius promised to keep him safe. He promised that if Draco came back, he could have a special task from Voldemort himself, even.

Despite the numerous and unsettling letters, the summer hadn’t been too bad. Especially not for Harry, anyway. He’d been the one sleeping in the same bed as the person he loved every night. And his entire abusive family was scared of Draco, which Draco hadn’t minded very much. They’d been shoved into a room together upstairs, very small and cramped. Except Harry had been amazed. Apparently he used to sleep in the cupboard.

But while this had been an improvement for Harry, it was very much not so for Draco. He’d never had anything to do with what he’d been getting in that muggle household. He was used to good food and spacious rooms and being constantly surrounded by magic. And while Harry was used to all that now, too, he still knew what it was like to live without it.

Not to mention the atmosphere had been completely tense the whole time, the two of them staying holed up in Harry’s room for the majority of their stay. There was nothing much to do but think about the fact that Draco’s father was a Death Eater and Voldemort was running around rampant. And Harry’s nightmares had been as bad as ever, which Draco helped to deal with, actually. He’d just pull Harry closer to him as he slept, and slowly Harry would stop shaking, stop whimpering. Stop crying, sometimes.

Really, the only thing that had been _good_  about it was that it had been a great time to catch up with Harry after their horrible year of not talking. They shared everything under the sun, talking and talking and talking until their throats were dry. It turned out that Harry had known just as much about what Draco had been up to as he had about Harry—Hermione had been talking to both of them about each other, and they’d both stubbornly refused to acknowledge one another while suffering on their lonesome. Still, it’d been nice to have Harry all on his own after such a long time without him.

Although maybe spending so much time with Draco hadn’t been as good for Harry, as he’d been just as bad at hiding his crush as always—and just as oblivious, too. It’d been so obvious it had almost gotten exhausting for Draco to pretend he didn’t notice it all the time. Almost every single night Harry had eagerly gotten ready for bed, only to “accidentally” wrap himself around Draco completely during the night.

Still, Draco figured it was a better summer than any he could’ve spent in the manor with Voldemort and his own Death Eater father. And by the time summer was coming to an end he’d actually been excited to go back to Hogwarts.

But now he was enjoying the luxuries of having his own bed—his own room, when nobody else was around—and that meant keeping Pansy out.

“Sorry,” Draco finally said, not really sorry for reporting her. “What do you want?”

“ _I_  don’t want anything,” she sniffed, looking hurt. “I just came to tell you that Harry’s here to see you.”

Draco felt his mouth drop open. He, Hermione, and Ron had carefully escorted Harry to his bed after his whole fiasco with Felix Felicis. Sure, Harry had ended up being right—it’d worked great and he’d managed to get the memory out of Slughorn in the end, but then they’d been left with an almost drunk-like Harry. By the time he’d come back they’d just been relieved he hadn’t managed to get himself hurt.

“What’s he doing here?” Draco hissed. He didn’t think himself lucky enough for the Felix Felicis to have worn off already, which meant Harry was at his bedroom door with the assistance of a luck potion.

“He says Felix told him to come,” Pansy said with a roll of her eyes, and Draco groaned before climbing out of bed, padding out into the hall in just his pajama pants. Harry was out there, leaning against the wall looking dazed and vaguely pleased. He brightened when he saw Draco.

“Draco!” he cheered. “I knew you’d come!”

“Yep,” Draco said pleasantly, his lips pressed together. He turned to Pansy. “If you’ll excuse us.”

“Ugh!” Pansy groaned and then marched away. Draco didn’t bat an eye at her dramatics.

“What’s up Harry?”

“Can we sleep together?”

“I— _what_?”

“I’ve been having a lot more nightmares lately,” he admitted, unabashed. Draco felt bad. It’d been _months_  since school had started, had he been having nightmares all this time? “I just wanted to get a good night’s sleep tonight.”

“Oh,” Draco said. “Oh. Um. Sure. Yeah, come on.”

Harry smiled broadly. “I knew you’d let me stay!” he cheered, before disappearing into the dorm. By the time Draco had pinched his nose and prayed for patience, Harry had already climbed into his bed and tucked himself under the covers.

—

Draco was anxious. They all were, knowing Harry was off doing something dangerous with Dumbledore. Hermione had taken to frantically reading through the nearest book to try to distract herself. Draco wondered if she noticed it was a first year's standard book of spells.

Ron was pacing, walking back and forth and constant peering out the window as if he'd see the two strolling up the front path soon. It was driving Draco mad, knowing Dumbledore was letting Harry go into such a dangerous situation. He'd tried to convince Harry to just let Dumbledore take this one, to sit back until he had to do it himself, but he refused.

"This is my war," he'd said.

"It's everyone's war," Draco had argued, but that’d done nothing to change his mind.

And so Harry was off somewhere with Dumbledore, trying to destroy one of Voldemort's Horcruxes, and the rest of them were left to wait around anxiously for something to happen. For all they knew, Harry could be dead.

"What if he's dead?" Pansy suddenly said. Hermione jolted, tearing a page out of some poor first year's book.

"Don't say that," she hissed. They'd all been in on the Horcruxes since Harry's first meeting with Dumbledore. They'd already planned to help him hunt them whenever the time came, probably after their seventh year. Except for the fact that he was off hunting one now, without the rest of them. And sure, technically it was his task, but Dumbledore had told him to include them all. Why couldn't he include them now?

"I see something!" Ron suddenly shouted, pointing out the window. They all crowded around him, shoving against one another to try to see out the window, into the darkness.

"Where? Where?"

"There!"

Draco spotted him, following Ron's finger pressed against the glass. He was on a broomstick, Dumbledore flying by his side.

"Where are they going?" Draco hissed, following their progress.

"The astronomy tower?" Blaise suggested, and just like that they were off. They tore out of the common room, ignoring the fat lady's shouts of _where are you lot going?!_  and pounding down corridors and up staircases.

By the time they got to the astronomy tower's stairs they were out of breath, but they at least had the forethought to go up slowly, cautious of what might be up there. After all, Harry and Dumbledore supposedly had a Horcrux with them now. And there was, of course, the question of as to why they'd even gone to the astronomy tower instead of the main entrance in the first place.

Draco reached the top of the stairs first, leaning carefully around the doorframe to examine the scene before him.

Dumbledore was standing at the edge of tower, his hands in the air, with— _was that Snape?_ —before him. There was a green glow to the air, which Draco immediately realized was because of the Dark Mark in the sky. _So where was Harry?_

"Let's remain calm," said Dumbledore. "I'm unarmed. See?" He slowly reached down to his belt and withdrew his wand. He tossed it and it clattered against the stone loudly, rolling all the way to Draco. It hit his shoe.

Panic flooded his veins immediately. Dumbledore was surrendering himself to Snape? He didn't understand it, couldn't comprehend it, but… where was Harry? He couldn’t be… he couldn’t be… Had Snape put the Dark Mark in the sky?

But Snape wasn't really a Death Eater—he war just spying for the Order of the Phoenix. Right?

Everyone else had reached the top of the stairs, were crowded around Draco and surveying the scene. One by one they appeared to notice that Harry was nowhere to be found, that Dumbledore had his hands in the air.

"What...?" whispered Ron.

"Please, Severus," said Dumbledore, and then Severus whipped his wand into the air, was saying it before any of them could do anything to stop him.

_"Avada Kedavra!"_

Draco let out a choked noise, had managed to take a single step forward before he was yanked back by Hermione. In seconds she'd scooped up Dumbledore's wand, shoved them all against the wall, and cast a disillusionment charm so strong Draco couldn't even see the wavy image of his own hand.

"Can't you see?" Hermione demanded, her voice thick with tears. "Dumbledore knew we were here. He threw you his wand, Draco. He'd want us to stay hidden."

That's all she had time to say before Snape was striding past them, his robes swishing behind him. Draco thought he'd be a brave enough person to defend himself against a Death Eater, to protect those he loved. He thought he would’ve chased after the person who murdered another man in cold blood, right before his eyes. Instead, Draco felt ashamed of himself as he shrunk further into the wall as Snape passed. He was a coward.

"Where's Harry?" he finally hissed, the second Snape's footsteps had stopped echoing down the stairs. And that's when he heard it—thick, choked sobs, coming from the tower.

They all rushed out at one, gaping at Harry as he leaned over the parapet, his Invisibility Cloak abandoned on the ground by his side.

—

"I can't do this," Harry whispered. He was sitting in the center of his bed, his fingers digging into his knees so hard Draco didn't doubt his skin was red beneath his pajama bottoms. His face was white, his scar extremely stark and bright against it. His wide eyes were staring at the bed covers in front of him, his whole body shaking. "I can't do this alone."

It'd been hours since Snape had betrayed them, since he'd struck Dumbledore dead and run away. It'd been chaos after that, students and teachers alike running through the halls. Draco had ended up giving McGonagall Dumbledore's wand, explaining how he'd gotten it.

"Yes, yes," she'd muttered distractedly, as much in a state of shock as the rest of them. She'd mentioned something about drawing him up a portrait, about creating his will, but Draco had already been zoned out. He'd been able to see hulking, black, skeletal creatures at the edge of the forbidden forest. It's taken him a while to realize they were thestrals.

"You're not alone," Draco said now. He climbed into Harry's bed to prove it, pulling him against his chest. Harry let out a sob, pressing his face into Draco's shoulder and clinging to him.

"This isn't something just you have to do," Draco said softly, running his fingers through Harry's hair. His mother had done it to him whenever he’d been upset when he was little. "We're all going to be there, all going to be right by your side. You won't be alone."

"I'm scared," Harry whimpered, his fingers clenching in Draco's shirt. "And I know I shouldn't be."

Draco felt himself frown. It wasn't fair. No other sixteen-year-old in the _world_  was expected to hunt Horcruxes and put an end to an all-powerful batshit madman, much less not be scared while doing it.

"You're allowed to be scared," Draco murmured. "We all are."

The door flew open then. It was a testament to how worn out Harry was that he didn't even look up. Draco did, though. He turned his head to watch as Ron entered the room, looking harried. He and Hermione had been running around with the teachers, shooing people back to their houses to perform their prefect duties. Maybe Draco should've been doing that too, but he'd been otherwise preoccupied.

"Harry," Ron said softly, and Harry just let out a sob as a response. And then Ron was climbing into the bed as well, was hugging Harry from the other side, and Draco too. Dried tear tracks decorated Ron's cheeks. He made eye contact with Draco as he patted Harry's back, rubbing circles over it.

"It'll be okay," Ron promised. "We're going to figure everything out. We'll be okay."

They stayed like that. And later, when Hermione found them and joined the hug as well, they stayed like that. And even later when Blaise and Pansy found them, both solemn, and laid on the bed bedside them, they stayed like that.

They all fell asleep together, limbs and bodies overlapping, hands clenching shirts, legs thrown over torsos. They shared sleep and body heat, found solace and comfort in one another.

Draco knew it was hard now, but they'd be able to accomplish anything together. He believed in Harry, believed in his strength. He knew that they could win, that nothing would stop them.


	12. A Slight Kidnapping

There was only time for a single, panicked look to be exchanged between Harry and Draco before they were captured. Voices rang out as did spells and in seconds they were bound together, back to back, with Draco’s wand accio’d away from him. They glared at their captures.

Shock was the only thing cycling through Harry’s system—how had these people _found_  them? And who even were they? They weren’t wearing Death Eater masks or anything, but then again, he and Draco _were_  tied up together—they were clearly bad guys.

“Think it’s funny to say the Dark Lord’s name?” one of these men snarled, whipping around to properly look at Harry. But then his brows furrowed and his mouth dropped open. “Hey,” he said, voice quiet. And then, louder: “Hey! It’s Harry Potter! Harry bloody Potter!”

The wizards surrounding them had been too busy grinning at each other over their success in capturing a couple of kids to have actually realized _who_  they’d captured, apparently. Harry’s eyes widened as he recognized one man from the paper, having heard all about him from Lupin—Fenrir Greyback.

Greyback looked as astonished as his stupid cronies, his eyes moving frantically over Harry’s face. And then he looked at Draco.

“It’s Malfoy’s brat too,” he spat. _Actually_  spat, his spit landing an inch in front of Draco’s shoe. Draco raised his chin. Greyback pointed in his face, grinning and shaking his head. “I knew your daddy was lying, saying you were off at Durmstrang. _Durmstrang_!” He scoffed, pacing away from Harry and Draco, stood tense against each other, before stalking back. “We’re gonna show your daddy just what he gets for trying to protect you.”

Greyback was slowly becoming more excited, his shoulders jittering with it. He kept pacing, shaking his head and grinning at the two of them. “And we’re gonna get a fat reward for _you_ ,” he said triumphantly, jabbing his finger into Harry’s chest. “Bet you didn’t even know the Dark Lord’s name was tabooed—say it and us snatchers’ll get ya.”

Harry felt like the forest was rushing all around him—he didn’t know what to do. Was that true? Daring to say Voldemort’s name had gotten him into this situation? But surely, he must’ve said it hundreds of times since they’d been camping, right? Blatantly, Harry recalled the numerous amount of times Ron had shut them up before they could utter the name, his only explanation being that he’d had a bad feeling about it.

Now, Harry swallowed thickly, wishing he’d taken Ron’s unease to heart. How could they possibly get out of this situation? Harry didn’t even have his _wand_  for Merlin’s sake!

And to think he’d been so happy two minutes prior, his eyes wide with wonder to _finally hear_  that Draco loved him too. And now they were both doomed, probably going to be laid at Voldemort’s feet.

Strangely enough, he didn’t even feel that scared about it. Mainly, he felt relief. Relief that the snatchers didn’t know about the rest of his friends, hidden behind a wall of protection a few hundred yards away.

“Stay calm,” Draco whispered, so quiet that Harry could almost believe he imagined it. But he hadn’t; Draco’s hand tentatively gripped his, trapped behind the both of them like they were. It was awkward, not the best position for holding hands, and yet Harry felt a hundred times steadier with his fingers wrapped around Draco’s, squeezing them tighter.

“Yes, today’ll be a big day for all of us, boys,” Greyback said, facing his comrades with raised arms now, his sharpened teeth glinting behind his lips. “A very big day.”

“Where will you take us?” Draco said, his voice oddly calm and steady. “My family manor, I presume?”

Greyback twisted his lips at Draco and said, “ _I presume_ ,” mockingly, before he scoffed. “Yes, we’re going back to your stupid manor. Don’t expect your daddy to be able to protect you.”

Draco cleared his throat. He twisted his head against Harry’s, facing towards wherever their camp was, somewhere behind the trees. “Well then. YOU’LL NEVER MANAGE TO TAKE US TO MALFOR MANOR! LOCATED IN WILTSHIRE, HIDDEN IN THE MIDDLE OF A FOREST WITH CLASS A WARDS, IMPOSSIBLE TO TAKE DOWN UNLESS YOU OWN A WARD SPELL BOOK, EASILY PURCHASED IN DIAGON ALLEY!”

“Shut the fuck up!” Greyback snapped. A moment later his hand was on Harry’s shoulder, his clawed fingers tightening painfully, and with a crack, they were gone.

Apparating was as disorienting as it always was, even more so with Draco bound to him with ropes. They landed unsteadily and struggled to stay standing. Harry’s eyes darted every which way, trying to document his surroundings. A cold chill filled him as he recognized the building he’d, for a short time, considered his home.

“Home,” Draco whispered in a choked voice.

Moments later, footsteps were ringing out on marbled floors, followed by a gasp. Harry twisted his head, trying to see over Draco, see who had appeared.

“Draco.” It was Lucius—his voice sounded thick, sounded full of emotion. Fenrir Greyback snarled.

“I knew you were lying to us, Malfoy,” he spat. With an angry slash of his wand, Harry and Draco were separated, and he was yanking Draco to his feet. Before Harry could do anything, another snatcher was on him, holding him tightly and restraining him.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Lucius said innocently. Harry stared on in confusion.

“You told us—told the _Dark Lord_ —that your son was off at Durmstrang, growing stronger before he joined our ranks.”

“He was,” Lucius said with a nod. “Weren’t you, Draco?”

“ _Don’t lie to me!"_  Greyback screamed. “Don’t you _dare_  lie or I swear I’ll bite him! We’re gonna call our dear Dark Lord soon enough, Malfoy. But first…” Harry struggled against the man holding him, but it was no use. Greyback was smiling wickedly, one arm holding Draco firmly against his side. His other hand came up to caress Draco’s face, who flinched. “I think we’ll have some fun.”

“Leave my son out of this,” Lucius said tightly. “I don’t know why he was with that Potter brat—perhaps he’s been imperiused—but leave him out of this. Your business is with me.”

“What did I say about lying?” Greyback whispered, still grinning. He laughed, maneuvering Draco so that he was hugging him to his chest, and hovered with his mouth open, millimeters from Draco’s throat. Barely audible, so quiet Harry could almost pretend he hadn’t heard it, Draco whimpered.

“Ohoho, our Lord won’t be happy about your lies,” Greyback continued. Harry could see his lips brushing against Draco’s throat as he spoke, could see Draco standing stiffly, straining away from the werewolf holding him with all his might. “I don’t think he’d mind at all if we ruffed your pretty boy up a bit.”

“Don’t you dare touch him,” Lucius hissed, his face white with fury. For a stupid, childish moment, something inside Harry panged with hurt: there’d been a time when he’d thought Lucius had cared about him, when he thought Lucius might’ve sounded that way to protect _him_. That was before he’d known he was a Death Eater, before he’d stood behind a mask in that graveyard all those years ago, before he’d proven that it really was useless for Harry to put his trust in adults. After all this time only Harry’s own friends had managed to stick by his side.

“You’re right,” Greyback said, shoving Draco away from him. Draco stood in between his father and Greyback uncertainly, his fingers shaking. Harry longed to run to him. After all, what was keeping him standing there, instead of running behind his father for safety? His father who, despite being on the wrong side of the war, still very clearly cared for his son? Cared for his safety and protection?

But Draco just continued to stand there, stiff and cautious, as if he had an enemy on either side of him.

“It’d be cruel of me to hurt your son,” Greyback sighed theatrically. “Someone _else_  should do it, right?”

Lucius’ mouth was already open, already twisted into a snarl, when Greyback flung his finger towards the man holding Harry. In seconds Harry was standing and manhandled closer to Draco, the arms around him crushing him so tightly he could hardly breathe. Then he was flung to the floor, right by Draco’s feet. Seconds later, a wand clattered to the marble in front of him.

It was instinct, it was natural: Harry snatched the wand and jumped to his feet despite his bruised body, turning his back to Draco and leveling his arm at the wizards surrounding them.

“Harry, it’s no use,” Draco said softly. His hand slid onto Harry’s elbow, gripping lightly. “Look at the floor.”

Breath unsteady, hand shaking with adrenaline, Harry spared a glance towards the floor—and then stared. On the ground was a shining outline, a circle surrounding him and Draco. Harry reached out with his free hand, stretched his fingers and—

“Shit!” He recoiled when his fingers met the empty air above the line, an electric-feeling shock stinging through his fingers.

“You won’t be getting out of there,” one of the snatchers said proudly, his arms crossed lazily over his chest. “It’s a spell of my own design—only I know the counter-curse.”

Draco seemed resigned, seemed to have already accepted what was happening, but Harry still felt inclined to fight.

“ _Reducto_!” he shouted, pointing the wand that he now realized was Draco’s at the barrier. The spell collided and dissolved, fizzling out into nothing. Harry blinked. He tried again. And then he tried about ten other spells, all of them melting away just like the first one.

“Harry, stop,” Draco said. His voice was gentle, as was his hand. All the snatchers surrounding them had been watching with amusement, laughing, except for Draco’s father. He’d just been glaring. “It won’t work.”

“What do you want from us!?” Harry roared, fruitlessly flinging his fist towards the barrier. He cried out as electricity zapped through his entire arm, sending him careening back into Draco’s chest.

Greyback stepped forward. “Introduce your dear friend to some pain and we’ll consider letting you out of that circle.”

“No,” Harry said immediately. It was a trap, anyway. There was no way they’d be getting out that easily. His only hope was the fact that they’d yet to summon Voldemort—until Voldemort knew of their presence, they had a chance for escape.

“Do it,” Greyback growled, stepping closer again. Another snatcher stepped forward beside him, his wand pointed right at Harry’s face. “Or have it done to you.”

“I won’t do it,” Harry spat, and Draco grabbed his arm, twisting him to face him.

“Just do it, you prat!” he said, shaking Harry harshly. Even _his_  grip hurt Harry’s arm.

“No,” Harry said firmly.

“Harry—”

Harry didn’t know what he said next, because someone had shouted “ _Crucio_!” and the ground had come up to meet his face, and his entire body was spasming, /writhing/ on the ground, twisting this way and that as sobbing shrieks of pure torture ripped through his throat, cut through the air.

He didn’t know how long it lasted, could barely comprehend Draco’s sobs to “Stop, please stop! _Please_!” nor the hands flitting across his body as he shook and arched and curled over the floor. All he knew was that, when the blackness rose up to meet him, he embraced it with open arms.

—

His whole body was twitching when he awoke. Aftershocks of the pain, memories of it still moving through his muscles, his veins. His entire being felt exhausted and weak, felt worn down to the very bone, but relief greater than he’d ever known rushed through his body when he realized it was _over_  and that Draco was _safe_.

Better than safe, Harry realized. He was under Harry—his thighs cushioning Harry’s head, his shaking fingers brushing gently through Harry’s hair. As Harry blinked open his eyes, something wet landed on his forehead, followed by a sniffle. Draco was bent over him, his eyes clenched shut, his mouth pulled down into a quivering frown. They were in the dungeons, a place Harry had only visited in his most extreme rounds of hide-and-seek with Draco.

“Draco,” Harry croaked, the sound more of a breath than an actual word. But Draco heard it, and his eyes flew open, and he gasped as he pressed Harry’s hair away from his forehead with trembling hands.

“Harry!” he murmured, his voice thick. One of his hands reached over, scrabbled against the floor, and then glasses were being pressed onto his nose, covered all over with dust and dirt.

“Thanks,” Harry muttered, his eyes fluttering shut again.

“I hate you,” Draco whimpered, the way his frantic hands touched Harry—his hair, his cheek, his chin and chest and _hair_  again—belying the fact. “I fucking hate you.”

“No you don’t,” Harry breathed, and despite it all, despite his twitching body, despite the toes he could barely feel and was honestly scared to try to wiggle, despite the dungeon they were trapped in with little hope for escape, he smiled. “You love me.”

Draco laughed, weakly at first, and then harder: hard enough that it shook his whole body, that Harry could feel the vibrations through his thighs. And then Draco was leaning down, was pressing his laughing lips against Harry’s forehead, and then his cheek, and his nose, and his other cheek and his forehead again. His fingers were bunched up in Harry’s hair in his forehead was pressed against Harry’s and he laughed. “Fuck, I do,” he said, and Harry laughed too.

“That’s good,” Harry said. “That’s good. Because I love you too. Forever.”

Draco, apparently, didn’t quite know what to say to that. Instead he was carefully, carefully maneuvering them until they were both lying on the ground, Harry’s head on his chest, and his arm wrapped around Harry’s back. Harry clenched his fingers into Draco’s shirt and held on.

“How long until they find us, do you think?” Harry asked. Draco didn’t even have to ask who.

“Maybe a day,” he said with a guilty bite of his lip. His hand was rubbing up and down Harry’s back. “It’s easy enough to get a book about our wards but… it’s harder to actually take them down. Hermione can do it—I know she can—but it might take her a little while. I wish there was another way, but…”  
“It’s okay,” Harry promised. “They’ll get to us. Besides, Greyback probably won’t want to hand us over until I torture you.”

Draco sighed. “Then we don’t have long.”

Harry laughed, despite the feeling aching through his entire chest. “You don’t understand,” he said. “If that’s the case, then we have forever.”

—

Harry woke with a terrifying crack. _Snatchers_ , he thought, disoriented. _I said Voldemort’s name, there’s snatchers, they’ll get us, they’ll—_

“Harry Potter, sir!” a familiar voice squeaked. Harry struggled to sit up, and, when he failed, Draco helped him into a seated position.

“Dobby?” Harry said incredulously, squinting into the darkness at the house-elf—the house-elf holding Draco’s wand. “Dobby, what are you doing here?”

“Harry Potter’s friends is sending me, sir! They is telling me you and Master Draco are in danger!”

“W-we are but—how’d you even get in here?”

Harry’s heart was racing, hope and excitement blossoming in his chest. Draco’s hand tightened around his shoulder. Harry could barely move yet, definitely couldn’t walk, what with the number that’d been done on him, but his body was radiating with hope.

“House-elf magic is very different from wizarding magic, Harry Potter sir,” Dobby said sagely, nodding his big head importantly. “I can be Apparating us all away now, sir,” Dobby added, holding a hand out to both of them.

And then, much easier than it should’ve been, much simpler than Harry ever would’ve dared to hope for, they were escaping. They were Apparating with a crack and landing inside the very tent they should’ve been in all those hours ago.

Hermione’s squeal was the first thing they heard, and then they were overwhelmed with hugs, all their friends crowded around them, hugging and crying and saying so many words all at once that Harry couldn’t possibly be expected to actually listen to any of them.

Draco was laughing, his arm still tight around Harry, as if he couldn’t bear to let go. Harry couldn’t bear to let go either.

“You didn’t buy the book?” Draco was saying, his face pressed into Hermione’s mess of hair. Her arm was slung around his shoulders, her other hand clutching the very center of Harry’s shirt, he just realized.

“Of course not! Merlin, your plan was stupid. It was much easier to track down Dobby.”

Draco laughed, shaking his head, his eyes a million times brighter than they’d been in that dungeon. He looked at Harry, grinning impossibly wide, and Harry croaked out a laugh and rested his head on Draco’s shoulder.

“…and Harry left his wand behind, like an _idiot_ ,” Pansy was saying, although to who exactly wasn’t apparent, but everyone was nodding, rolling their eyes and reaching out to touch Harry in assurance.

“So glad you’re okay,” Ron was murmuring into Harry’s ear, his arms wrapped around Harry’s waist, and Harry laughed and bonked his head against Ron’s, reaching out to pat him on the chest.

“Me too,” he said, and Ron laughed against him, shaking his head.

“…thought I’d have to go track them down myself,” Blaise was saying, his arms crossed over his chest, glaring at anyone who would look at him. He’d already been apart of the giant hug pile they’d formed on the floor and was now standing, pretending like he hadn’t been sniffling into Harry’s ear moments previous.

“Let’s go to the kitchen,” Hermione was saying, clapping her hands and looking important and determined. “We’ll make tea, and talk, and plan, and…”

“I can’t stand,” Harry piped up, and the chatter died down immediately, four curious gazes turning on him. Draco had already been looking at him.

“What?” Hermione whispered.

“Just—not right now, anyway,” Harry said weakly.

“What happened?” said Ron, his hands tightening on Harry, as if he could go back and prevent whatever had already happened.

“They crucio’d him,” Draco said quietly, his eyes distant, his face pale. Unconsciously, it seemed, his hand tightened against Harry. “I don’t know for how long… Forever, it seemed like.”

And just like that, the jubilant, excited air of their return was muted. It turned into exhaustion and relief, of final, long hugs and insisting they get Harry into bed, and get him tea, and get him protein, right? He probably needs protein, right?

By the time several people had kissed his forehead—Harry was honestly too exhausted to keep track of who—he was close to drifting to sleep, finally safe and warm and somehow not in danger anymore. He couldn’t help the broad, broad smile that spread across his tired lips, however, when Draco climbed into his bed.

“What’re you doing?” Harry whispered, peering through sleepy eyes at Draco, curled on his side next to Harry.

“Protecting you,” Draco lied, clearing his throat and looking away, pretending like he didn’t just _want_  to sleep next to Harry. But Harry did want to sleep next to Draco, so he struggled to roll over and pulled Draco closer to him, sighing against his skin as Draco slowly relaxed, holding Harry against him less awkwardly.

“Hey Harry,” Draco murmured, moments before Harry could drift to sleep.

“Yeah?”

“I think we have the Elder Wand. I’ll explain in the morning.”

“Holy shit,” Harry’s exhausted mind was able to conjure, and then he was falling asleep against Draco’s chest, his mind performing cartwheels as it tried to process this information while being dragged under.


	13. A Slight Master of Death

Maybe it was surprising that Draco was having possibly the best sleep he’d ever had. After all, he should probably still be feeling a bit anxious having just been kidnapped the day before. He should probably be finding himself with a good deal of insomnia, staying up half the night worrying about the war, worrying about Voldemort’s whereabouts and plans.

Instead, he just felt magnificently comfortable. Harry was warm against him, curled around his back, his fingers twisted in the material of Draco’s shirt. Plus, he was pretty sure they were closer than ever to defeating Voldemort.

They still had that damned horcrux of his around—although they’d gained enough sense to stop wearing it around their necks all hours of the day and had just given it to Hermione to put in her bag for safekeeping. So they’d still destroyed just as few as they’d found, but even so, Draco was feeling incredibly hopeful. They had the Elder Wand.

There’d been a lot of time for thinking, the previous day. Watching Harry getting crucio’d was probably the worst instance of Draco’s entire life. Watching him writhe and scream on the floor, wishing he could do something to alleviate his pain and being unable to do so, was heart wrenching. He’d been screaming just as loudly as Harry, had begged and begged for it to stop, had sobbed over his still, twitching body the moment he’d passed out.

But after that, locked in the dungeons for hours, terrified that Harry wasn’t going to make it, he’d had time to think. To think back on the things he regretted, on the things he could’ve done better, on the ways he could’ve saved Harry.

He’d ended up thinking of Dumbledore. _I should’ve saved him,_  he’d thought. Standing at the top of that tower, watching as Snape killed him—he should’ve stepped in in time. Should’ve stopped it from happening. Imagine how much farther along they’d be in the Horcrux hunting process if he hadn’t managed to let Dumbledore die?  
Harry couldn’t have saved him—he’d been frozen still under his cloak—but Draco had just stood there, at the top of that stairwell, being useless. And what had Dumbledore done? Tossed him his wand.

It’d probably been a cry for help. Probably a _‘Oh, I can see that you’re not saving me despite being right here in perfect distance to do so. Perhaps you would like my wand to save me with?'_. And yet Draco had just stood there, stupid, pathetic, as Snape had killed him, had sent him careening over the edge.

Thinking back on it, Draco had frowned. It was weird, then, that he’d gotten Dumbledore’s wand not only once, but twice. Dumbledore had tossed it to him, let him pick it up. And Draco had given it to McGonagall, of course. And she’d drawn up a portrait of Dumbledore to help him write his will.

_So why had he given Draco his wand a second time?_

It’d been then that Draco had realized, maybe none of it was really a coincidence. Maybe Dumbledore had put a lot of thought into the things he’d left them in his will, instead of just randomly gifting different artifacts from his life like they’d all assumed.

Hermione’d gotten that book, the hint to the Deathly Hallows. Draco had gotten the wand—maybe _one of_  the Deathly Hallows. Ron had gotten a put-outer for whatever reason, not that they’d ever really used it (maybe Dumbledore had felt bad not giving him something). And Harry had gotten that snitch. _I open at the close._

Horcruxes and Hallows. If Draco was right, then they already had two Hallows. Dumbledore had given one to Harry in their first year at Hogwarts, and one to Draco in their last. That left one final Hallow. Draco liked the sound of his chances with Hallows better—they could put all their effort into finding one thing, rather than trying to track down whatever the rest of the Horcruxes were, all of which they had half-abandoned ideas for, scribbled over crumpled pieces of paper lost somewhere in Hermione’s magically expanded bag.

Plus, he could see the wand he’d been gifted _being_  the Elder Wand. It’d always felt too powerful when he’d picked it up, like magic was thrumming through his very veins when he held it. Of course Harry could handle it easily enough—the guy was like a storehouse of power, it was ridiculous. He probably didn’t even feel overwhelmed at all!

It was all this deduction that left Draco more sure and confident than camping out in the woods and reviewing Voldemort’s past ever had. They were closer now than ever—they just had to get there.

Harry hummed in his sleep and scooted even closer to Draco, if that was possible. Draco dropped his hand to where Harry’s was scrunched up in his shirt, brushing his thumb over the back of Harry’s hand.

He finally pried his eyes open and had to force himself to not scream, his face a mere inch or two away from Blaise’s.

“What are you _doing_?” Draco hissed, and Blaise took a gracious step back, still squatting down, his knees bent.

“You’re sleeping with Harry.”

“Yeah. And you scared the shit out of me.”

“Sorry, I was just making sure you weren’t someone polyjuiced as Draco.”

“How would you figure that out just by looking at me?!” Draco pointed out, and Blaise frowned. Finally, he shook his head.

“I would just know.”

With Blaise having backed away from his immediate vicinity, Draco became aware of the fact that he wan’t the only one staring at the two of them. For example, there was Ron, his mouth gaping at Draco, wrapped up in Harry’s arms. Pansy just looked smug, though Draco couldn’t figure out what about for the life of him. And Hermione was just smiling over the rim of her cup of tea. When she caught Draco looking at her, she winked.

Very suddenly, Harry groaned, and everyone stilled. “Draco,” he said.

“Yes?” Draco answered, his cheeks pink.

“…Time is it?”

Draco looked to Hermione. Hermione flicked her wand. Draco squinted at the numbers that’d appeared in the air.

“Eight-thirty,” he answered. Harry sighed against his neck.

“Was you telling me about the Elder Wand a dream, or…?”

Blaise coughed. “Is that a euphemism?”

Harry froze against Draco’s back. “You’re not going to run away this time, are you?” he whispered, clinging just a little bit tighter.

“It wasn’t a euphemism,” Draco said sternly to Blaise. Him not getting up and running away seemed to be answer enough for Harry, who’d apparently not been asleep the last time Draco had woken up with him and subsequently escaped in a speedy fashion.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Hermione butted in. “Elder Wand? What’s going on with the Elder Wand?”

“I’m still thinking it’s a euphemism,” Pansy said, siding with Blaise. A pause. “For a dick.”

“Yep, we got that,” Draco grunted, shifting away from Harry uncomfortably and sitting up. Harry followed him, blinking tiredly and wincing at some unknown pain. Draco bristled, remembering Harry on the floor, Harry screaming, Harry in pain.

Ron was smiling softly, looking at Harry and glowing with happiness. Was it really that important to him? That Harry got to finally be with Draco after liking him for so long?

The thought made him feel guilty. He'd not only been restricting Harry's happiness (and, let's face it, his own), but Ron's as well. Maybe everyone’s, all of them being forced to feel pity for Harry all this time, or something. Unable to help himself, Draco reached behind himself and tangled his fingers with Harry's, holding back a smile when Harry immediately grabbed his hand and squeezed.

"So, Elder Wand," Hermione said, drawing their attention back to the matter at hand. "What did Draco say about it?"

"That we already have it,” Harry answered.

"I'm pretty sure," Draco added.

"What!?" Pansy also added, quite intelligently. And so Draco went on to explain about how Dumbledore had ended up giving it to him twice, about how odd it’d seemed for him to have left it to him in his will.

"He gave Hermione the hint about the Hallows to help us figure out that he'd already given me one of them," Draco finished.

"And me," Harry added. "My cloak, back in first year."

"So all that's left is the stone," Ron said quietly, looking thoughtful.

"The most useful one," Harry added bitterly. This garnered a look of alarm from Hermione, who cleared her throat.

"That's _if_  we're right about this. _And_  if we're right about the owner of all the Hallows becoming the master of Death. It could just be a figure of speech," she said thoughtfully, looking off into space. "Being able to kill anyone, resurrect anyone, and hide from Death itself would, effectively, make you a master. But only because you could do those things. We might still have to find all the Horcruxes."

"Maybe," said Harry. "But maybe not. We can ask Dumbledore himself."

This got blank stares from everyone, including Draco, who'd scooted to the side a few minutes ago to sit beside Harry.

"You don't mean breaking into Hogwarts, do you?" Ron questioned. "Because that'd be a suicide mission. And just to talk to his portrait..."

"Not his portrait. _Him_ ," Harry said. He tugged open the moleskin pocket at his throat and pulled out the snitch. " _I open at the close_. Dumbledore already gave us two Hallows—why not a third?"

Silence. Thick and heavy in the air, surrounding them. It was the silence of possibilities, of wanting and not wanting to believe all at the same time. The silence of chance and fate lined up at once, making way for something possibly too perfect to be true.

"But how do we open it?" Hermione finally whispered, staring at the snitch in the same reverent way the rest of them were. Here they all were, a group of mismatched seventeen-year-olds with magic in their veins, possibly about to become the masters of Death.

"'I open at the close'," Pansy quoted. "Of course Dumbledore would give you some bullshit kind of hint like that. The close. The close of _what_?"

Now they'd all taken to muttering, pacing, wondering aloud what Dumbledore could've possibly meant by this. Harry was still sitting on the bed, now cross-legged with his chin in his fist, his eyes clenched shut as he thought.

Draco scooted closer to him, letting their shoulders bump. Harry's eyes fluttered open and he looked at Draco out of the corner of his eye. Tentatively, he smiled. Draco smiled back.

"This whole thing is a suicide mission," Pansy groaned, flopping down on the other side of Harry. "He sends us on some stupid journey with only the vaguest of hints to help us and somehow expects us to live through it all."

"Or maybe he doesn't," Harry whispered.

"What?" this was Blaise, looking up from a book from across the room, having been leaning over Hermione's shoulder as she researched Merlin knew what.

"Maybe he doesn't expect us to survive. Maybe he thinks we're going to die."

"That's just sick," Ron muttered, looking sick.

"Maybe he expected us to come back, though," Harry said, looking at the snitch in his hand in wonderment. And then, so quietly Draco was sure no one else could hear it, Harry pressed the snitch against his lips and whispered, "I'm about to die."

A small click sounded, and then the snitch was sliding open, a hidden compartment making itself known, and a nondescript looking rock fell out of it—right into Harry's palm.

"Oh my God," Hermione said, her hands coming up to cover her mouth. Harry blinked down at the rock in his hand, his mouth agape. When he looked up, he screamed.

Pansy screamed too, but only in reaction to Harry. Everyone had jumped into action, spinning around and reaching for wands, but no one was there.

"Harry...?" Blaise said tentatively, but Harry was just staring around him, all around him, his eyes shining.

"It's my family," he whispered.

"What about Dumbledore?" asked Hermione. Harry ignored her, nodding to something someone invisible was saying.

"We're gonna beat him," Harry said. He scooped his wand—the Elder Wand—up from the bedside table before crossing the room to a trunk. He pulled his Invisibility Cloak out of it and swung it around his shoulders.

The change was instant.

The cloak, instead of rendering Harry invisible like it should have, went pitch black. Harry had his wand held in one hand, the resurrection stone clenched in the other, and his eyes roamed behind his friends, darting to and fro, like there was more than just them in the room.

It felt like his magic was permeating the room. Like it was latching onto all of them, onto the walls. Draco almost felt afraid. Like... like... if he made one wrong move, he could be struck dead. In the blink of an eye, even.

Harry dropped the stone. His cloak immediately went back to normal, hiding the shoulders it was wrapped around from sight. He then, very carefully, shoved the cloak from his body and onto the floor before finally tossing the wand onto the pile. The room was silent.

“We’ll beat him," Harry promised. Very subtly, almost impossible to see, his knees were shaking. ”And then we’ll destroy the Hallows."

—

It was kind of ridiculous, right?

They were in the middle of a war—on the verge of winning it now, finally—and Draco's biggest problem was, apparently, romance.

"What happened to waiting until after the war? About now not being a good time?" Hermione questioned. They were sitting just outside the tent, a fire cracking merrily before them. And it did seem merry—the war would be over soon, Draco could feel it. Everything was wrapping up, coming to a close.

"I experienced the last thing I would ever want in the world," Draco answered. "I thought it only reasonable to allow myself to experience the best."

Hermione raised an eyebrow.

"Imagine it was you and Ron in there," Draco whispered. "You think either of you could see, could _hear_ , the other being tortured and not realize that it's not worth it to wait? That giving in to love is the best, the _easiest_  thing to do?"

Hermione blinked at him, surprised. "You know I love him?"

Draco scoffed. He leaned back on his elbows and looked up at the darkening sky over the leafy cover.

"Won't have to wait long now."

"I guess not," Hermione said, sounding thoughtful. And happy. "I'm gonna head inside," she said suddenly, getting to her feet.

Draco nodded. She was almost inside the tent flap when he spoke. "Send Harry out here, won't you?”

When Harry emerged, he looked almost shy. Hopeful. He also looked a little scared—Draco didn’t blame him.

Not only was he going to harness Death and put an end to Voldemort, he was also grappling with the beginnings of a new relationship. Sure, one was clearly much scarier than the other, but fighting Voldemort was a close second.

“What’s up?” Harry asked. He kept walking, closer and closer to Draco, before finally plopping onto the ground beside him.

“Nothing,” Draco said, quite honestly. “I just wanted to be alone with you.”

Harry looked at him and grinned. Draco hadn’t had any ulterior motives when he’d invited Harry out here, but seeing him now, his face lit up with a smile, his eyes bright behind his glasses, he couldn’t help himself. He leaned forward, slowly enough so that he could see Harry’s eyes widen, his lips part, and then he was kissing him.

His eyes slipped closed as he did, one of his hands coming up to tangle in Harry’s mess of hair as he kissed him, as he moved his lips slowly but surely against Harry’s. He’d never expected it to feel as wonderful as it did, to make his fingers shake, his lungs broken. He found himself never wanting to stop kissing Harry and wondering why in the world he’d never done this before.

When they pulled apart, Harry’s face was flushed. He shut his mouth with a snap, his lips involuntarily pulling up into a smile. “You can’t imagine how many times I’ve dreamt of kissing you,” Harry whispered, still close enough that Draco could feel the words on his lips.

“Oh, really?” Draco said with a smirk, and Harry laughed, pressing forward to kiss him again. Draco sighed into it, gasping when Harry suddenly pulled him closer, his fingers digging into Draco’s sides and tugging him. Draco ended up on Harry’s lap, leaning down as he kissed Harry, as Harry sighed against his mouth and ran his fingers over his back, his torso. As he slipped a hand under Draco’s shirt and ran it up his chest.

The feeling of Harry’s hands on him was magical—which was, to say, ordinary. It felt like they were where they belonged, somewhere they were supposed to have been forever. His fingertips were cold as he touched Draco, any and everywhere he could reach, as they continued to kiss, faster and deeper and _more_.

Finally, Draco managed to pull away, managed to grab Harry’s hand and pull it out from under his shirt, despite how good it felt.

“Wait,” he panted, and the way Harry looked at him, desperate and devastated, almost made Draco want to let him continue.

“What?”

“I just—we should take things slow,” Draco insisted, sliding off Harry’s lap, his cheeks tinged pink. He’d never done any of this stuff before, and while it was exciting and felt great, he also kind of wanted to take it slow. And Harry hadn’t done any of it either! It only made sense for them to take their time—they’d have tons of it after Voldemort was gone.

“Okay,” Harry said with a nod, swallowing thickly before clearing his throat. “Um, yeah, no problem.”

“Thanks,” Draco said with a soft smile, and Harry reached over to grab his hand and squeeze it.

“I love you,” he said, so seriously and sincerely that it made Draco shiver with its intensity.

He looked at Harry, thought about all the time he’d wasted on not loving him back, and said, “I love you too.”


	14. A Slight End to the Story

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's smut in this chapter (finally)!! and also this is the last chapter i ??? can't remember if i mentioned that before? anyways this is It. i hope you enjoy and please tell me what you think! i've appreciated all your comments so far immensely and i can't thank you enough :']

It all happened much faster than expected.

With the Deathly Hallows on their hands, they felt more confident about winning than ever. So confident, in fact, that they only took a single day to prepare and come up with possibilities of where something might go wrong. When you owned the thing that made power thrum through your veins and seep through a room, planning didn’t really seem necessary.

Although it _did_  seem necessary later on. Deciding to go to Hogwarts had been a plan born of nostalgia and hopes of liberating it from Snape once Voldemort was killed. They’d planned to land there, maybe sneak in and talk to McGonagall about what they were going to do (because in the end, they were still kids, and sometimes they craved the guidance and support of a trusted adult). Everything immediately went to shit, however, when arriving set off loud alarms and they were forced to hide.

When they finally made it to Hogwarts, thanks to Aberforth Dumbledore’s secret tunnel, they’d been feeling antsy and anxious. Plus, they’d started to realize saying Voldemort’s name wouldn’t exactly summon him to them. It would summon a bunch of snatchers, who presumably, would then snatch the lot of them and take them elsewhere. In all that commotion they might not be able to fight them off, or might lose a part of the Deathly Hallows, and they couldn’t afford for that to happen.

Luckily, or possibly unluckily, on their way to find McGonagall (after being greeted by all the kids in the room of requirement, multitudes of people from every house) they ran into the Carrows. It was stupid of them, really, but they hadn’t even been thinking about staying hidden. Their minds had been too distracted by what was to come.

By the time the six of them had managed to restrain the two Death Eater teachers, Alecto had already managed to touch her finger to her Dark Mark. After a brief panic, they realized that maybe this wasn’t such a bad thing, seeing as they’d wanted to summon Voldemort anyway. Still, it didn’t bode well that he hadn’t been summoned on their own terms.

And they were right to be uneasy. Voldemort came, and he brought with him an army. Death Eaters and giants and Dementors and spiders—all sorts of horrors waiting for them outside the walls of their school. And the castle’s defenses had only managed to hold up for so long, during which McGonagall managed to chase Snape out (who turned out to have been secretly on their side all along—who knew?).

Many students had stayed to fight while the rest, the ones too young, were hurried out through Aberforth’s tunnel.

Harry didn’t know what’d inspired him to do it. Maybe weakness, maybe curiosity. Either way, he’d found himself making his way up to Dumbledore’s office, trying to get one last peak at the man’s portrait before all hell broke lose. It was up there that he’d realized that they should’ve planned all this out a little better.

Dumbledore had explained that Harry was a Horcrux. He’d explained that killing Voldemort with the Hallows would destroy all the Horcruxes along with him, once and for all.

“I can’t be sure what’ll happen to you, Harry,” he’d said, his eyes solemn.

Unable to speak, Harry had just nodded and stumbled out of the office, down the stairs.

It was a lot to take in, the fact that you were about to die. A small, selfish part of Harry had screamed _so don’t kill him_. If Harry didn’t kill Voldemort, he could still live.

But Harry had never been a very selfish person. And so he’d shoved down that part of him, deep into himself where he wouldn’t have to hear it, and he went to find his friends. He didn’t tell them what Dumbledore had said, of course. It was hard enough for him to accept that he was close to the end—he couldn’t possibly do it if they all knew, too.

And to think, he’d thought he would have all the time in the world, after Voldemort was gone. A bitter laugh bubbled up in his chest—one that he held down—because he’d been in love with Draco for _years_. He’d longed for him, dreamt about him, for day after day after day, and now that he finally had him… He wouldn’t get to keep him.

Before the battle, Harry spent a long amount of time just staring at his friend’s faces, trying to memorize them. He so badly wanted to hug them all fiercely, wanted to pull Ron into his arms and bury his face in Hermione’s hair, to kiss Draco and hug Pansy and Blaise, even if they’d jab him in the sides for it. He just wanted to touch them all, to keep them close, but that would only make them suspicious. He wasn’t supposed to be scared, wasn’t supposed to be wary. He had the Hallows, could almost taste victory—showing any unease on his part would only make his friends suspect something.

And so Harry said nothing. He let them think things would be find, that peace and happiness was right on the horizon.

And when Voldemort’s voice, loud and booming, echoed through the halls of Hogwarts, demanding for Harry’s presence—he went. Of course he went. He didn’t need all these people—children, really—fighting his battle. Especially not when he had the Deathly Hallows. When he was, effectively, the Master of Death.

And so he walked into the forest, Elder Wand in hand. He strode confidently out of view, blackened Invisibility Cloak around his shoulders and Resurrection Stone clutched in his fist. He left his friends behind, because bringing them would violate Voldemort’s terms, and disappeared from their view into the towering trees of the Forbidden Forest.

His family surrounded him, ghosts or memories of them. And when he held just the stone, that’s all it was—just them. But with the Elder Wand, with the Invisibility Cloak…

The dead were everywhere.

They surrounded him on all sides, walked circles around him, whispered at the pitch of screams. Their voices swarmed around him, leaving goosebumps perpetually on his skin. Ignoring them was impossible, but he tried anyway.

The dead were nothing compared to what felt like electricity thrumming through his veins. He felt like he was on drugs, high on magic. He felt like he could see farther, sharper.

Even worse, he could feel the lives of everything around him. They clung to him like spiderwebs—he resisted the urge to shake them off, scared of what it’d do. He could feel the trees’ lifespans around him, old—so old. Could feel the underbrush, the leaves and flowers and ants beneath his feet. He could feel it all.

The sheer amount of power was terrifying. It didn’t even feel like magic anymore—and maybe it wasn’t. It was because of this that he realized the Hallows needed to be destroyed. Something as great, as terrible as this couldn’t be allowed to continue to exist—not if it could fall into the wrong hands.

Harry realized then that he might not have a chance to destroy them after he killed Voldemort, not if he died too. But he couldn’t turn back now. He’d look like a coward, like he was too afraid to go. And he couldn’t explain why he wouldn’t be able to destroy them himself either… He would just have to hope that he would have time. Maybe they'd even destroy themselves.

Harry ended up finding his way to the clearing because of the Hallows. He could feel the cluster of human life (and something less human) and followed it. He heard their voices before he saw them, and the dead stirred around him before he heard their voices, panicked and afraid.

_“You can’t go back there!”_

_“He’s evil!”_

_“Death!”_

Their voices swam around him, speaking over each other, becoming jumbled in the air. He ignored their warnings and continued, his feet silent on the forest floor.

The Death Eaters sensed his presence before they saw him—all looking around uneasily, suddenly aware of the sheer amount of power in their midsts. When Harry emerged in the clearing, a cloak of darkness slung around his shoulders, they all murmured warily.

Voldemort looked less terrifying than he had before. Smaller, almost. Weaker.

It was over almost as soon as it began. Harry saw the monologue, the words Voldemort had been planning to say, slip out of his head when he laid his eyes on him. Instead his face morphed into a sneer, his eyes as thin as slits, and he raised his wand.

Harry raised the Elder Wand.

 _I’m going to kill him,_  Harry managed to think, maybe tinged with a bit of surprise, by the time Voldemort uttered the killing curse. Harry’d seen the killing curse before—at the end of his fifth year, green light, loud and rushing, a horrible finale to a short life. He could remember having Draco with him, by his side after much too long away from it. Could remember being nervous—so nervous—because what the hell would he do if he lost Draco here, now?

Except now it was coming towards Harry. But whereas before it’d been loud, rushing, terrifying—now it just seemed weak. It was quiet and slow, something that Harry dismissed with a flick of his wand. It flew astray, hitting a Death Eater off to the side.

 

Murmurs rose amongst the Death Eaters—a few even cried out. Furious, Voldemort tried again.

 _“Avada Kedavra!”_  he exclaimed. But Harry sent it right back into the wand it’d escaped from.

For a moment, he felt victorious. He saw Voldemort’s eyes widen in surprise, saw the light explode around him, saw his life slip away. But at the same moment, Harry felt it too. He lost his balance, his heart beating erratically in his throat, and was gone before he hit the ground.

—

Draco shouldn't have followed Harry. He knew it was dumb, knew it was irresponsible of him, but he hadn't been able to help it. He hadn't been able to let Harry walk off to face Voldemort alone—not after everything. They'd gotten to this point together, after all.

And so he'd followed him, tip-toeing through the forest as quietly as he could. He'd been afraid Harry would be able to sense him or something with the Deathly Hallows, but Draco was either too far out away from Harry to be noticed or Harry was too distracted.

It was scary, how unaffected Harry seemed by the Hallows, walking steadily forward, his shoulders wide, his head tall. Draco could feel the power radiating off him even from here.

He slowed down, creeping through the forest even more carefully, once Harry stepped into a clearing and stopped. Voices rose, murmurs from Death Eaters Draco hadn't spotted until now. He stopped behind the thick trunk a little ways away from the clearing and watched, his chest tight.

It was terrifying.

Voldemort was as intimidating as ever. Just being in his presence had goosebumps rising all along Draco's arms. He was the man Draco had always associated with evil and danger, and now he was standing a matter of yards away from him.

Harry was even closer.

When Voldemort fired the killing curse at Harry, Draco felt his heart stop. Time slowed, his heartbeat thudded once, twice in his ears—and Harry redirected it. Sounds and sensations rushed back in, Draco's heart now thundering fiercely in his ears.

 _Kill him,_  Draco urged silently. _Kill him, Harry!_

And Harry did. With Voldemort's next spell, Harry sent the killing curse back into him. For a moment—a second—Draco felt utter elation. For a second, he felt just excitement and happiness, a joy so deep and so profound that is screamed through him: _we won_.

But then Harry fell, a mere second or two after Voldemort had. His body turned limp, boneless, and he crashed to the ground completely still. None of the Death Eaters paid any mind to this, to the thing that’d stopped Draco’s heart, that made his entire body numb. They were Apparating left and right, disappearing now that their dear Dark Lord was dead.

Draco ignored them all.

He sprinted through the trees, burst into the clearing with the remaining Death Eaters. Not a single one of them spared him a half of a glance. Their loyalty was abruptly proven, so frail that they escaped at the first sign of their leader being dead.

“No,” Draco whispered, as he dropped to his knees beside Harry. The forest floor immediately soaked through his trousers. “Stop,” Draco said, to no one in particular. His throat was tight—he couldn’t be sure he was breathing at all. If Harry wasn’t breathing, why should he?

He grabbed Harry’s wrist with shaking fingers, his skin still warm, and pressed his thumb against Harry’s pulse point. “Please,” he whispered, and he pressed harder against Harry’s wrist, and harder still, so hard it would most certainly bruise.

“Harry _please_ ,” he moaned. Maybe he just couldn’t feel his heartbeat because his fingers were so numb.

Harry was so, so still, so motionless, but he couldn’t be _dead_. He just couldn’t be—not after everything. How could it have even happened, anyway? It didn’t make sense. People didn’t just drop dead for no reason!

“Wake up.” Draco’s voice hitched with a sob; he tastes tears on his lips. “Wake _up_!”

He collapsed onto Harry, thick, ugly sobs ripping through his throat. Voldemort was lying dead on the ground somewhere, fucking finally finished, and it wasn’t even worth it. Not if Harry had to go too.

Again, he could hear a heartbeat in his ear. And a groan—his own, probably.

“…hurting me,” Harry grunted. Draco sat up so quickly he got dizzy. He started crying even harder then—relief swamping him so thoroughly he was sure he’d get whiplash from the quick turnabout of his emotions.

“Harry!” he gasped, breath hitching. He wasn’t even able to think. His body moved without his brain’s permission and he was climbing on top of Harry, straddling him and kissing him, taking Harry’s breath away as quickly as he had gotten it back.

“How?” he demanded, against Harry’s lips, in between kisses. “How? You were gone—your heart… it _stopped_ ,” he said. He was sure Harry could taste his tears, not that he had any brain power left to care about it.

“I was dead,” Harry said, so sure it gave Draco pause. Harry gripped his hips as he leaned up to kiss him again. And then he just hugged Draco to him, burying his face into Draco’s neck and holding him tight. “I saw Dumbledore—I was at King’s Cross,” he said. “There was a train.”

“You didn’t get on it,” Draco said, understanding.

“No.”

“Thank Merlin for that,” he breathed. His hand had found its way into Harry’s hair, burying itself in his messy locks and holding on tight. They stayed like that for another minute, simply holding each other close, love and relief thrumming between them. And then they finally got up, aware of the fact that were kind of sitting next to a dead body with probably the three most powerful objects in the world scattered around them.

Harry was the one who checked to make sure Voldemort was really dead. Draco wasn’t proud to admit it, but he was too scared to even get close to his corpse. Harry was different. He was fearless and stupid and had taken that life himself, probably felt it disconnect when he’d been holding all the Deathly Hallows.

But Voldemort really was gone. His heartbeat was stopped and he was as lifeless as he should’ve been ever since trying to blow baby Harry to smithereens.

Harry and Draco made their way back to Hogwarts, hand in hand, to break the news.

—

Harry groaned as he fell into the bed. He was exhausted, understandably so—they all were. Repairing Hogwarts was no easy feat. Apparently the armies Voldemort had brought had gotten impatient waiting for their master to kill Harry and had started attacking Hogwarts anyway. Teachers and students alike had fought back, the chaos resulting in a Hogwarts in shambles.

Still, it was nice to be back, even if walking through the halls meant occasionally walking past walls that were entirely blown out. Draco knew Harry liked being back even more than he did—it’s always been like a home to him, a real one. Not a home with abusive relatives, not a home with a fake, traitorous father—just a home. Knowing this, it made him appreciate being back even more.

The atmosphere was amazing, too. Everyone was in high spirits, which was kind of obvious. Having Harry Potter vanquish the Dark Lord was pretty much bound to do that to people. Just walking down the halls had people stopping to shake his hand, to thank him. Sometimes Harry had to pull his hand out of Draco’s to shake the sheer amount of people’s hands in front of him.

It annoyed Harry, no doubt, because he was convinced he didn’t do it all by himself, that he didn’t deserve thanks. He was wrong, obviously. He’d been the one to handle all that power, to control it without letting it consume him. He’d destroyed the rock right there in Gryffindor dorm, using the Elder Wand. He’d then snapped the wand, and again for good measure. Draco had stopped him before he could tear up the cloak.

“Wait,” he’d said. “You’ve had the Cloak forever—your father before you. It’s harmless without the others. Keep it.” And so Harry did. Draco was pretty sure he was glad about it, too. It was the one thing he had from his dad, anyway.

“Tired?” Draco said now, rolling onto his side to stare at Harry. Now that he and Harry were together, he couldn’t help but want to punch every one of his past selves in the face for not doing it sooner. He loved holding Harry every night as he fell asleep, loved kissing him when he woke up, and bringing him breakfast when Harry accidentally fell back asleep.

They didn’t try to hide a single aspect of it either, were completely blatant in their affections for each other. Ron was infinitely pleased, climbing into his bed next to them every night, smiling like a loon. One would think _he’d_  been the one to finally hitch up with the love of his life (which, well, maybe he had). Pansy and Blaise entertained themselves by commenting on their relationship at every possible opportunity as well, which was pretty much their versions of being happy for them.

They didn’t know how long they’d be staying at Hogwarts, though Draco expected it’d be a while. Almost everyone was sticking around to help with repairs, and lessons were cancelled until the next year. The majority of students were to repeat the year, seeing as they’d learned almost nothing, constantly harassed and living in fear as they were.

Draco was sure McGonagall would let them stay the entire summer, if they so desired. She’d pulled Harry into a minute long hug, just holding him and patting his back, after they’d emerged from the forest. She’d thanked him, and told him she was glad he was safe. Surprisingly, she’d pulled Draco into a hug next.

“It’s about time you showed that boy some love,” she’d said fiercely. Draco had stuttered out an agreement. He’d never been hugged by a teacher before.

“Very,” Harry responded now, although he was smiling. “I was helping in the Great Hall today. You?” Draco felt his face morph into a similar expression.

“Staircases,” Draco answered. “Almost fell off one and broke my face,” he added. Harry gasped dramatically.

“Don’t you dare ruin that face!”

Draco couldn’t help the giggle that escaped him as Harry rushed forward to kiss him. It was chaste, at first. Just a slow movement of their lips together and apart. But then Harry was kissing him again, and again, and his tongue slid against Draco’s lip, snuck into his mouth.

He rolled on top of Draco, pinning him down with his body and kissing him deeply, his hands on either side of Draco’s face. Their chests moved together, expanding and shrinking as they breathed into each other’s mouths. Harry was panting as he moved away from Draco’s lips, kissed up his jaw and under his ear. Draco tilted his head, his mouth hanging open as Harry’s lips brushed over him, his tongue trailing up Draco’s ear.

“We should stop,” Harry whispered, before kissing his jaw again again and sucking on the soft skin. Draco arched into him and twisted his fingers in his shirt.

“No we shouldn’t,” he argued, gasping as Harry finally abandoned his neck to return to his mouth, which he began kissing again.

“What happened to taking it slow?” he murmured. One of his hands was resting along Draco’s side, fingers lined up with his ribs, and it was _burning_  through his thin t-shirt.

“‘M done taking it slow,” Draco said, sliding his hands down Harry’s torso. They came to rest on his hips, squeezing once. “If that’s okay?”

“Totally okay,” Harry said, and then he grinded against him, their arousals lining up as he did. Draco’s breathing hitched as he jerked up into Harry, tugging down on his hips as he did. “Completely okay.”

Then Harry slid his hand down Draco’s side, wriggling it in between their bodies where he palmed Draco’s crotch.

“Merlin!”

 _“Silencing charms!”_  Ron suddenly roared, and Draco felt his face go bright red, matching Harry’s.

“Fuck,” Harry muttered, as Draco scrambled for his wand and murmured the incantation under his breath. There was a moment of tense, embarrassed silence, and then they were giggling against each other.

Just like that, the tension was gone, and they were moving against each other again, smiling against one another’s lips. They tugged off clothes without having to ask, shirts and trousers peeled away and shoved aside, hands running over bare skin, lips glistening with saliva.

“You’re good at this,” Draco gasped, as Harry kissed down his chest. He grinned up at him from his waistband, his fingers creeping under the hem.

“I’ve imagined this a million times,” he admitted, before tugged down Draco’s boxers after raising his eyebrows, to which Draco hurriedly nodded. His cock sprang free, Harry’s eyes following it.

“Like you imagined?” Draco asked breathlessly.

“Better,” Harry answered, reaching forward to grab it. Draco groaned, throwing his head back and pushing up into Harry’s fist.

Nothing had ever touched his cock other than his own hand, before. Well, other than a pillow he’d rutted against once or twice, but nothing was ever going to beat this. Harry’s hand moved more languidly than his own, and his fingers were more calloused. Plus, it was just entirely different when someone else was doing the touching, when it wasn’t up to him to twist his hand or slide his thumb over the top.

“Fuck,” Draco muttered, sitting up slightly to watch Harry’s hand on him. Harry was grinning, his eyes lit up with excitement. “Gonna let me touch you?”

Harry was nodding before Draco could even get out the whole sentence, scrambling out of his boxers and crawling up the bed towards Draco. They faced each other, and Draco reached in between them to touch Harry.

Immediately, his eyes fluttered shut, his hand coming up to grip the pillow under his head.

“Oh,” he breathed, as Draco twisted his wrist just so, making Harry jerk forward into his fist all the sudden. His breathing became shaky, his hips twitching forward, into Draco’s hand. Part of him still couldn’t believe he was even touching Harry like this, even in the same bed as him, whereas the other part of him just wanted to devour him completely.

He ended up rolling on top of Harry, letting go of his cock to just rut up against him instead. Harry whined, gripping Draco’s sides as he did this, panting along with Draco. The bed was shaking, and Draco knew he’d be embarrassed about it later, seeing as everyone else in the dorm could definitely see it, but right then he couldn’t find it in himself to care.

“Wait,” Harry panted, and Draco forced himself to slow down, shuddering to a stop against Harry and shaking where he lay, his whole body tense with the amount of pleasure built up in him.

“Y-yeah?”

“Kinda wanna, um…” Instead of answering, Harry’s fingers slid down his back to rest on his arse. Draco felt his eyes widen, momentarily surprised, but then he let himself relax and rested his head on Harry’s shoulder. He’d only fingered himself a couple times before, but he wasn’t against Harry doing it now.

With a few murmured words, Harry’s fingers were slick and rubbing against him, before a single one pushed carefully inside. Draco laid still as Harry opened him up, his fingers working against him, pushing in further and further. By the time he had three fingers in Draco was shaking—it’d never felt this good when he’d done it before. This was before Harry found his prostate, too, as when he did Draco cried out, very suddenly bucking down against it.

They were both tense and impatient by the time Draco finally convinced Harry he was ready. And then they were flipping over again, kissing as Harry lined himself up, as he pushed in. He took it slow at first, careful not to hurt Draco. They were both impatient though, both hungry for more, and soon Harry was pulling out, pushing back in harder, faster.

Draco stretched out underneath him, panting as Harry grunted above him, the sounds of them together loud and obnoxious but ultimately trivial compared to what they were feeling.

“God,” Harry said, choked, his fingers sneaking up into Draco’s hair. He tugged a bit, and Draco groaned, letting his head follow Harry’s fingers.

Harry shifted, and then he was pounding directly into Draco’s prostate, and he was clinging to Harry even harder, telling him faster, more. For some reason, this made Harry slow down—Draco whined against him as he did, but Harry ignored him. Suddenly he was just moving above him languidly, his cock slowly, slowly, slowly pressing into Draco, filling him up, before staying there for a moment.

“Harry please,” Draco moaned, and Harry pulled back out, just as agonizingly slow as before. Draco’s breaths were ragged, his fingers likely leaving bruises on Harry’s hips as he tried to pull him in faster. Harry was completely unaffected, his chapped lips pressed gently against Draco’s shoulder, kissing him as he fucked Draco at a snail’s pace, his orgasm so close, within reach.

Draco tried to move against Harry, tried to fuck himself against him, but Harry groaned and just collapsed his weight on top of Draco, pressing him thoroughly into the mattress.

“C’mon,” Draco urged him. “Don’t pass out now.”

“Not passing out,” Harry murmured, reaching up to kiss at his jaw. “Just taking things slow.”

“Take things fast,” Draco insisted.

“Want this to last,” Harry whispered. Draco clenched around him, and Harry gasped, accidentally stuttering into him quickly. Draco groaned at the feeling, and Harry punished him by just staying there, his cock filling Draco up completely and staying utterly still. Draco tried squeezing around him again, which felt great, but wasn’t enough.

“Harry,” Draco whined. “Come on, I’m close.”

“Don’t you want our first time to last?” Harry pestered. He said this while pulling out slowly again, looking at Draco with wide eyes. Draco responded by reaching out and grabbing Harry’s hips, pulling him forward so suddenly that he was shoved back into Draco, who groaned and threw his head back.

“No,” Draco finally answered as Harry panted against his neck. “Want it to end, so we can have our second time.”

Harry moaned in response to this, and maybe took it to heart, as suddenly he was pulling out again, only to slam back in. Draco thanked Merlin silently and laid back, trying to catch his breath as Harry suddenly rocked into him again and again, his orgasm building up and up. It was like a tsunami, pulling back only to rush forward all at once, drowning him, ruining him.

Draco cried out under Harry as he came, making a mess of their stomachs, and Harry continued to fuck into him. He came in Draco after just a few more thrusts, clinging to him as he gasped, kissing him as he came down.

They laid together afterwards, breathless and tired and, in Draco’s case, sore. Harry was careful when pulling out, and Draco just tilted his head back and closed his eyes.

Harry peaked out the curtains before climbing out of the bed, the dorm presumably empty. Draco started drifting off to sleep after he left, the exhaustion from the day combined with his post-orgasm relaxation enough to knock him out. He was pulled back into wakefulness when Harry returned, rubbing a warm washcloth against the mess on his stomach and over his spent cock, cleaning him up.

“Romantic,” Draco grunted, his cheeks tinged pink as Harry banished the washcloth to wherever soiled washcloths went.

Harry shrugged. “I think it’s domestic,” he replied, snuggling back into the covers and pulling Draco against himself. They were both still completely naked, but it felt nice to be slotted against Harry that way, their warm skin pressed together.

“I think you’re domestic,” Draco responded smartly, and Harry snorted against his shoulder, tugging him closer.

“Go to bed,” he murmured into Draco’s ear. “I think you’re brain is fried.”

Instead of arguing that his brain was in perfectly fine condition, thank you very much, Draco listened to him and closed his eyes.

—

“Think they're naked?” Blaise hummed, his fingers brushing against the velvet hangings pulled tight around the bed.

“I bet you a galleon they are,” said Pansy.

“No!” Hermione said indignantly. “We are _not_  betting over their state of dress!”

“Just because _you’re_  not betting over how bare-arsed they are doesn’t mean we’re not,” Pansy scoffed. “Make it two galleons,” she added “They definitely fucked. Isn’t that right, Weasley?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Ron said hastily, ever the loyal best friend. Pansy raised an eyebrow at him, her expression so skeptical Ron had to avoid her eyes.

“Bet you a sickle Draco topped,” Blaise whispered, and Hermione reached forward to smack him on the shoulder.

“Blaise!” she hissed.

“Hermione’s right,” Pansy added seriously, earning an appreciative look from Hermione. “It was totally Harry.”

“Ugh!” Hermione cried, stomping away to stand angrily next to Ron. Blaise reached towards the hangings again, giving the spelled-shut curtains another fruitless tug.

“They’ll have to come out eventually,” he sighed.

“We’re never coming out of here,” Draco glowered to Harry, his voice unheard outside the curtains. Harry’s entire comforter was tugged thrice around his body. He didn’t trust their sticking charms to hold up against two Slytherins forever, and he certainly wasn’t going to be found naked when they failed.

“It won’t be so bad,” Harry tried to reason, splayed out on the bed, completely shameless in his natural attire.

“I’ll never live it down,” Draco hissed grumpily. “How’d we lose our clothes, anyway?”

“Probably shoved ‘em off the bed in the night,” Harry said with a shrug. Their wands were on the table outside the curtains too—they were completely defenseless in here. Naked and defenseless.

“I crave death,” Draco moaned, pitching forward onto Harry and laying there, a sad, motionless, blanket burrito.

“Maybe they’ll give up,” Harry suggested.

Draco just sighed. “And you claim to be friends with those two.”

Blaise dusted off his hands, having just completed the strenuous task of conjuring a comfortable couch. He and Pansy seated themselves on it, facing Harry’s bed and lounging against the fluffy pillows.

“They’ll come out eventually,” Blaise said confidently. Pansy just nodded, sipping at a pumpkin juice she’d managed to wrangle a house-elf into bringing her.

“Oh for Merlin’s sake,” Hermione muttered angrily under her breath while Ron rubbed her back soothingly.

It was many hours before the two finally emerged from the bed, hunger overcoming Draco’s need for privacy. In the end, he managed to hold the blankets around himself for all of two strides, his chin stuck primly in the air, before Pansy and Blaise burst into laugher and chased him into the Gryffindor bathroom. Harry was left to watch, a solitary pillow held fortifyingly in front of him.

“They’re evil,” he sighed, shaking his head.

“That’s Slytherins for ya,” Ron agreed.

Somewhere in the seventh year Gryffindor bathroom, a blond Slytherin git shrieked as he was hit with a stinging hex on the bare arse.

 

 

~

 

 

**The End**


End file.
